Amazon plans to hire over 300,000 US holiday workers, its first jump in three years

Picture a hiring list so long that it holds more than 3 lakh names, all for one company and one busy season. On Tuesday, 20 October 2026, the company said it plans to hire more than 300,000 workers for the US holiday season. These are people to pack, sort and deliver the flood of gift orders that arrives every November and December.

Here is the twist. For the past three years, Amazon kept this number stuck at 250,000. This is its first jump in three years, and it comes while many other big shops in America are hiring fewer holiday helpers, not more.

What is seasonal hiring?

Think of a mithai shop in your area just before Diwali. On a normal day, two people can handle the counter. But in the week before the festival, there is a long queue, boxes to pack and orders to deliver. So the owner brings in extra helpers for a few weeks. That is seasonal hiring: taking on extra people for a busy season, not for the whole year.

In the US, the biggest shopping season is November and December. People buy gifts for Christmas and the New Year, and a lot of that shopping now happens online. Every click on "buy" means someone has to find the item, pack it, sort it and drive it to a door.

Amazon says the new roles are a mix of seasonal, part-time and full-time roles across its US operations network, and that new openings will be posted every week from October to December. So not all of these roles end when the festive rush ends.

A number counting up to 3 lakh plus, with three equal blue bars for earlier years and a taller red bar for 2026 — Three years flat at 2.5 lakh, then a jump to over 3 lakh.

How big is the jump?

Going from 250,000 to 300,000 is 50,000 more people. That is 20% more than last year's plan. Imagine your school cricket team usually needs 10 players, and this year the coach picks 12. Same idea, just with a lot more zeroes.

Tech news site GeekWire calls it Amazon's largest holiday hiring target on record. An Amazon spokesperson told GeekWire that one reason is the new sites opening across the country as the company grows its network of warehouses and delivery centres.

One small but important point: 300,000 is a target, a plan for the season. Amazon will post roles week by week and fill them over the coming months.

Why does holiday shopping need so many extra hands?

Because Americans are expected to spend a huge amount. The National Retail Federation, a group that speaks for American shops, predicts that sales in November and December will grow 4.2% over 2025 to $1.013 trillion. Last year, the same two months brought in $972 billion.

Amazon's own sales have also picked up this year. GeekWire reports that the number of items sold on Amazon around the world grew 17% in the April to June quarter, compared with 12% a year earlier. More items sold means more boxes to pack and more vans on the road.

What do these workers actually do?

These roles sit in what Amazon calls its core operations. In simple words, this is the part of the company that moves physical things, not the office part that writes code or plans ads. GeekWire says the push is for Amazon's fulfillment centres and delivery stations.

A fulfillment centre is a giant warehouse. Workers pick the item a shopper ordered from tall shelves, pack it and send it on its way. Think of it as the kitchen where your order is "cooked".
A delivery station is a smaller building closer to homes. Here, packages are sorted by area, a bit like a school teacher sorting notebooks by class before handing them out, and then loaded into vans.

Four steps lighting up one by one: a shopper orders online, a warehouse team picks and packs, a delivery station sorts by area, a driver brings it to the door — Holiday workers fill the middle steps that turn a click into a parcel.

How much does the work pay?

Amazon says seasonal workers will earn an average of $20 an hour. Full-time operations workers start at a minimum of $20 an hour, and the average across its operations workforce is nearly $24 an hour.

Quartz adds that when benefits are counted, the average total pay for full-time workers is over $32 an hour. Benefits are the extras on top of salary, like insurance or discounts. They are part of what a company spends on each worker, even if they do not show up as cash in the pay slip.

The minimum starting pay of $20 an hour came after Amazon raised it by $1 in September for its US full-time core operations staff.

What changes for seasonal workers?

The other big part of the announcement is health insurance cover. From 1 January 2027, seasonal workers who work at least 30 hours a week will be eligible for healthcare coverage from their first day. Plans start at $5 a week.

Until now, seasonal workers had to wait 90 days before this cover kicked in. Since the holiday rush lasts only a couple of months, many of them finished their stint before they ever qualified.

Note the timing, though. The new rule does not start in time for this year's busiest stretch. GeekWire reports that people hired for the holidays who are still in a qualifying role on 1 January will get cover from that day.

Two panels: on the left, until now, a wait of 90 days; on the right, from 1 January 2027, cover from day one for seasonal staff working 30 or more hours a week — The wait for health cover shrinks from 90 days to zero, starting 1 January 2027.

Why is Amazon going the other way?

Most American shops are being careful this year. The National Retail Federation expects all retailers together to hire between 325,000 and 375,000 seasonal workers, close to last year's estimated 356,000. It says shops are cautious because of higher fuel prices, rising prices of everyday goods, higher interest rates and people carrying more debt.

Hiring firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas says that in the last three months of 2025, retailers added 461,500 workers, the smallest seasonal gain since 2008. It expects even fewer this year, around 450,000, as shops lean on machines, their existing staff and on-call workers.

Delivery company UPS plans to hire more than 100,000 seasonal workers, about 9% fewer than last year, according to GeekWire. GeekWire notes that Amazon now delivers most of its own packages.

There is one more twist. This hiring push for warehouses and delivery comes while Amazon is shrinking its office teams. Quartz reports that Amazon cut fewer than 1,000 roles in its Stores business and other units earlier this month. So the company is adding hands on the ground while trimming desks in the office.

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The big picture

Seasonal hiring is a simple idea: when the crowd grows, you need more people at the counter. What makes Amazon's plan stand out is the timing. It is hiring more while much of American retail is hiring less, and it is giving seasonal workers health cover from day one starting next year. Whether all 300,000 roles get filled will become clear over the coming weeks, as new openings go up every week until December.

Sources

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