After COVID-19 hiring spree, Amazon will reportedly offer 70% of new workers a permanent job

Amazon plans to offer permanent jobs to up to 70% of the 175,000 new U.S. employees it has hired to meet increasing demand the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the enterprise Reuters said Thursday. As of June, the company will reportedly offer 125,000 of these workers long-term employment, while the other 50,000 will be left on seasonal contracts with an 11-month term.

The move signals Amazon’s confidence that high demand for the delivery of groceries and other key household goods is unlikely to subside anytime soon, even if many U.S. states are beginning to ease the blocking of coronaviruses.

Amazon’s setting flash came quickly when people turned to online shopping while the government stayed at home. The expanded workforce has seen its share of turbulence in the past few weeks, including Protests against working conditions and at least five deaths by COVID-19. During Amazon Increase in wages and expansion of overtime wages The company was controversial after that last month Layoff of six employees who had spoken out in protest against the company. Amazon said the layoffs were due to internal policy violations, not retaliation.

“We didn’t fire anyone who spoke about working conditions,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, during the company’s virtual shareholders’ meeting this week. “We support the right of every employee to criticize the working conditions of their employers, but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t follow internal guidelines. But you will certainly take your rights to protest working conditions very seriously and have no problem with them at all. “

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.