Amazon hosts giant job fair

FALL RIVER: Amazon is holding a giant job fair and plans to make thousands of job offers on the spot at nearly a dozen US warehouses. Though it’s common for Amazon to ramp up its shipping centre staff in August to prepare for holiday shopping, the magnitude of nearly 40 000 of the 50 000 packing, sorting and shipping jobs at Amazon will be full time. Most of them will count towards Amazon’s previously announced goals. But more people are likely to lose jobs in stores than get jobs in warehouses, said Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University’s Centre on Education and the Workforce. Amazon’s warehouse jobs provide “competitive” wages and could help build skills such as interpersonal team work, problem solving and critical thinking, he added.