By Evan Niu, CFA | Mar 18, 2020
With people being urged to stay at home as much as possible during the novel coronavirus pandemic, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) has become an inadvertent beneficiary as e-commerce activity and online orders soar. The company announced this week that it would be hiring 100,000 new full- and part-time workers within fulfillment centers and its broader delivery network in order to “meet the surge in demand from people relying on Amazon’s service during this stressful time, particularly those most vulnerable to being out in public.”
Amazon previously increased its minimum wage to $15 per hour in the U.S. back in late 2018 following criticisms that the company wasn’t paying a living wage while also paying little to nothing in federal income taxes. The fresh pay bump is expected to cost an estimated $350 million.