Amazon is doubling its US workforce with 100,000 seasonal workers for the forthcoming peak season as ‘disrupter’ Uber and other start-ups expand their crowdsourced delivery services.
The e-commerce giant announced today that it is creating 100,000 seasonal positions across its U.S. network of fulfilment and sortation centres this holiday season in order to meet the increase in customer demand. In the months leading up to this holiday season, Amazon has also hired tens of thousands of regular, full-time employees.
Amazon has more than 90,000 full-time employees across its more than 50 fulfilment centres and 20 sortation centres in the U.S. To meet customer demand and prepare for the 2015 holiday season, the company has hired over 25,000 full-time employees since August. Throughout the year on average, nearly 90% of associates across the company’s U.S. fulfilment network are regular, full-time employees.
“We’ve hired more than 25,000 full-time associates across the U.S. in recent months and we’re looking forward to adding 100,000 seasonal employees for the upcoming holiday season,” said Mike Roth, Amazon’s vice president of North America operations. “Following last year’s holiday season, tens of thousands of seasonal employees found regular, full-time roles with Amazon. We’re excited to grow our team by finding great talent through our seasonal hiring efforts in addition to creating new full-time jobs that offer comprehensive benefits starting on day one.”
At the same time, Amazon is continuing to expand its diverse delivery services in the USA. Its ultra-fast same-day Prime Now service now offers deliveries of restaurant orders in Portland, Oregon, following the launch of Prime Now Restaurant Delivery in Seattle last month.
Using the Prime Now mobile app, Portland customers can view participating restaurants, browse menus, place orders, track the status of their delivery, and watch as the driver travels from the restaurant to the delivery address in real time. Once an order is placed, Amazon delivery drivers pick up and deliver the food within an hour or less. The average delivery time since introducing restaurant delivery on Prime Now is 39 minutes, according to the company.
“Portland has emerged as one of America’s best food cities,” said Gus Lopez, general manager, Amazon Restaurants. “With restaurant delivery on Prime Now, we’re excited to provide Portland residents with a fast and convenient way to try many of the restaurants that their friends and neighbours talk about without having to drive all over the city.”
In the US, alongside Prime Now and Restaurant Delivery, the e-commerce company also operates Amazon Fresh offering grocery deliveries in several cities and, in late September, announced the launch of ‘Amazon Flex’, a crowd-sourced ‘on demand’ delivery service using private persons to deliver Prime Now parcels using their own vehicles. The service is now available in Seattle and “coming soon” to Manhattan, Baltimore, Miami, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, Indianapolis, Atlanta, and Portland, the e-commerce giant announced.
This was seen as a pre-emptive move ahead of Uber’s long-awaited expansion of Uber Rush to more markets which was announced last week. The crowdsourced delivery service, already piloted in New York, was fully rolled out in the Big Apple, Chicago and San Francisco.
The company, which already operates restaurant and food deliveries with its Uber Eats and Uber Fresh services, said that “hundreds of local businesses” in the three cities will use Uber Rush “to make faster, cheaper, and more reliable deliveries” while online shoppers will be able to select the delivery service in various online shopping platforms.
Deliveries are made by self-employed persons using bikes and cars, who will receive training in making package deliveries and will reportedly be paid 75-80% of the delivery fee. Businesses rather than consumers are the main target group for the new service.
“Businesses that tap into Uber Rush will make getting anything in your city faster, more reliable, and more affordable than picking it up yourself. It’s time to save business owners the headache, save you the trip, and save us all a bit more time,” declared Jason Droege, head of Uber Everything.
The moves by Amazon and Uber and also the recent expansion of Google Express to more US cities will put pressure on delivery ‘start-ups’ such as Postmates, Instacart, Deliv and Shyp, which are trying to trying to find their niche making local deliveries of items ranging from restaurant takeaway meals, fresh food and groceries, to larger shipments with commercial goods. At present, Postmates is active in 40 US cities, Instacart operates in 18 metropolitan areas, Deliv covers 17 different markets and Shyp is in five cities.
Postmates last week launched ‘Postmates Pop’, “bringing meals to customers in 15 minutes or less” in the SoMa district of San Francisco, with more cities planned. “Pop is fast because it eliminates the pickup leg. Rather than spending time traveling to a specific merchant location or waiting for the food to be prepared, Postmates drivers who participate in Pop carry an inventory of freshly made items ready to drop off immediately,” the company explained.
In parallel, Deliv has teamed up with retailer Kohl’s to offer same-day delivery in nine markets, expanding their existing cooperation in San Francisco, the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago to Boston, Brooklyn/Queens, Los Angeles, Miami, Northern New Jersey, and Philadelphia in the coming weeks.
