Amazon to hire over 85,000 temporary elves for Christmas Amazon had said it expects to hire over 70,000 seasonal employees across the US, along with more than 15,000 in the UK, to cope with the Christmas rush. In the United Kingdom, the warehousing etailer will be taking on 2.5 times more staffers than the number of its 6,000-strong permanent workforce, while the United States will …
Based on my recent experience, perhaps they should lend the Royal Mail a few more people to actually deliver my goods on time. The courier firms are fine, most times the Royal Mail never seem to grasp the concept of 'next day delivery'.
Not all tarnished by the fact that Fifa 14 wasn't delivered this morning as expected :-)
There's just (as in this week) been a major change of shift pattern for all the UK FCs. There used to be a mix of folk working 5x8 hour shifts and 4x10 hour shifts, with a night shift running Nov-Dec. Now everyone's on 4 10-hour shifts and there's a permanent night shift. The various overlap days are going to be chaos; we don't have the capacity to have that many people working at once, never mind canteen facilities and so on. It's virtually certain that temps are going to get sent home or called and told not to come in. We've already got a shite reputation locally as an employer, and it's going to get worse.
The Xmas workers are on full time (40 hrs per week) with compulsory overtime paid at flat rate. I spent one season working in the Swansea Warehouse, and boy they do make you sweat, the first week there it was approx -4 degrees outside yet everyone wears shorts because it is red hot inside. There is a single 30 min break for lunch in each 8 hour shift, nothing unusual in that except it takes ten minutes to get through the airport style metal detectors to the break area and another 5 to return to the work place. If you have ever seen the 1920's film metropolis where the workers are toiling relentlessly you will understand what Amazon is like.
Walking around all day with a scanner that tells you where to go and what to pick up- if the for any reason the orders stop coming in the device tells you to report to the team leader in order to be sent home. Generally the orders pick up again before you get dismissed and you can get on your merry way. All in all an evil place to work.
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