Amazon has announced plans to hire 250,000 transportation and warehouse workers for the 2024 holiday shopping season, maintaining the same hiring target as last year despite predictions of a significant increase in online shopping demand.

This hiring comes in response to forecasts that e-commerce spending will hit a record $240.8 billion in the final quarter of 2024, a 4.9% rise compared to 2023, according to a recent Reuters report.

Sandy Gordon, Amazon’s Vice President of Global Operations Employee Experience, stated that the company’s hiring numbers are appropriate to meet the expected surge in operations. “We feel like the 250,000 is the right number to continue to grow and advance with our operations,” she said.

The new hires will be assigned various roles across Amazon’s sort centres, fulfilment centres, and delivery stations, though the company has not specified the exact distribution between these areas. As a company spokesperson clarified, these positions will not include workers employed by Amazon’s delivery service partners.

Amazon’s hiring drive exceeds that of competitors such as Target, planning to add 100,000 workers for the holiday period. However, overall hiring in the U.S. retail sector is slowing, with an estimated 520,000 seasonal jobs to be filled this year, down from 564,200 in 2023, according to the Reuters report.