COVID-19 shopping patterns have sent online holiday shopping—and Amazon hiring—skyrocketing. Online purchases on Thanksgiving Day were up 21.5 percent compared to last year, according to new figures from Adobe Analytics. Those numbers coincide with massive hiring by the e-commerce giant Amazon since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. A report from The New York Times revealed that the company has hired an unprecedented 427,300 employees in the past 10 months, averaging 2,800 a day since July. Those employees, most of whom handle purchases in Amazon's warehouses, do not account for 100,000 temporary workers Amazon hired for this holiday season, or 50,000 new delivery drivers, whom Amazon does not count as employees. Economists told the Times that the hiring spree was unlike any other, with the possible exception of a country gearing up for a wartime economy. Amazon has massively increased its operations and profits since the beginning of the pandemic, when the disease kept shoppers home and local stores closed.
