During the peak season, the e-commerce industry faces a significant labor shortage problem

As it is the peak sales season in the second half of the year, Amazon is facing considerable pressure due to continued supply chain tensions and labor shortages, and has been conducting large-scale recruitment of seasonal workers in many locations.

Recently, Amazon announced plans to recruit 12,000 seasonal employees in France to cope with the peak demand during Halloween and Christmas. This number of recruitments is much higher than before.

In response, Amazon said, "The epidemic and restrictions on physical businesses have accelerated the development of global e-commerce, and the addition of seasonal employees will play a key role in order processing, packaging, sorting and transportation." In addition to markets such as Europe and the United States, Amazon has also added tens of thousands of seasonal positions in India and other regions.

Faced with such a serious "labor shortage", Amazon also stated that it is actively lobbying the government to support the legalization of marijuana. As early as June of this year, Amazon first announced its support for the legalization of marijuana and would no longer test potential employees for marijuana. Now that Amazon is facing a serious labor shortage, part of the reason for supporting legalization is to make recruitment easier.

Amazon's vice president of human resources also said: "We found that canceling pre-employment testing for marijuana allows us to expand the applicant pool for our positions." It seems that Amazon is really being pushed into a corner.

Labor shortages are not just a problem for Amazon, but are even more pronounced for logistics companies. Even with many job openings, it’s hard to find people, and the labor market is very competitive. To prepare for the upcoming surge, the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, and Amazon are all looking to hire necessary seasonal employees ahead of the busy holiday shopping season.

Among these, the shortage of truck drivers is the most serious. This problem is common in many places in Europe and the United States, and the sales performance of many offline stores is also affected.

In addition to expanding recruitment, major companies such as Amazon have also raised employee wages to increase their competitiveness in the labor market.

The recurrence of the epidemic, coupled with rising freight rates, logistics congestion, and the current tight labor market, this year's peak season faces many challenges.

E-commerce

labor force

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