Amazon UK set to take on 13,000 seasonal employees ahead of holiday rush

Online giant Amazon is preparing to hire 13,000 additional employees to fulfill seasonal

positions ahead of its holiday rush. The news comes a week after the online retailer announced 1,000 new permanent positions opening across its centers in the UK over the next coming months.

The seasonal roles will be based at eight Amazon fulfillment centers across the UK, as well as its customer service center in Edinburgh. Amazon UK revealed that “hundreds” of the jobs will become permanent, full-time positions.

“Last year, on the busiest day in the run up to Christmas, our customers ordered 4.1 million items - that’s about 47 items ordered per second. The thousands of seasonal associates who join us at this time of year play an integral role in helping us deliver an exceptional experience for our customers during this incredibly busy time,” explained John Tagawa, Director of UK Operations at Amazon.

Although the number of seasonal hires appears to be down 2,000 in comparison to last year's hires of 15,000, Amazon UK has taken on over 1,000 additional permanent members of staff and is set to take another 1,000.

“We have created more than 2,000 new permanent roles at our fulfillment centers in the last two years, taking our total permanent fulfillment and customer service center workforce to over 6,000 employees.”