Amazon Shines in COVID-19 Response... Becoming a Good Corporate Citizen

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Amid the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), the response of the world's largest e-commerce company Amazon is drawing attention. Amazon has been prioritizing the hiring of workers from the service industry who lost their jobs due to COVID-19, and has also established a fund for logistics center and delivery workers who find it difficult to work from home. These efforts to improve treatment for workers in the blind spots of the social safety net amid the spread of COVID-19 stand out.

On the 6th (local time), Amazon announced that it would pay part-time workers in the Seattle and Bellevue areas of Washington State the same wages as before, even if they could not complete their working hours due to COVID-19. The number of part-time workers employed by Amazon in this area exceeds 10,000.

Additionally, as online orders surged due to the spread of COVID-19, Amazon announced plans to hire 100,000 people, prioritizing those who lost jobs in existing restaurants and cafes due to COVID-19.

On the 11th, Amazon announced the establishment of a $25 million (approximately 29.8 billion KRW) relief fund for delivery workers and seasonal workers. This fund is intended to pay wages to delivery and logistics center workers who cannot work from home if they are quarantined or diagnosed with COVID-19. Amazon employs about 250,000 workers across more than 110 logistics centers in the United States alone.

Amazon is also pushing for wage increases for delivery workers. The company plans to invest $350 million (approximately 434 billion KRW) to raise wages by about $2 per hour for entry-level delivery center workers in Canada and the United States, where the current wage is around $15 per hour. In the United Kingdom, wages will increase by ?2, and in the European Union, by €2.

Meanwhile, the number of workers employed by Amazon varies seasonally, but as of recently, the total number of full-time and part-time workers combined reached a record high of approximately 798,000.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.