Amazon India to hire 20,000 temporary staff to serve global customers

E-commerce major Amazon India on Sunday said it is offering close to 20,000 'seasonal' or temporary employment opportunities in its customer service (CS) organisation to help customers in India and globally with a seamless online shopping experience.

The new temporary positions -- being added to meet the anticipated demand in customer traffic in the next six months -- are open in Hyderabad, Pune, Coimbatore, Noida, Kolkata, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Mangaluru, Indore, Bhopal and Lucknow, Amazon India said in a statement.

Most of the positions are part of Amazon's 'Virtual Customer Service' programme that provides flexible work-from-home options, it added.

The new positions will see associates support customer services through e-mail, chat, social media and phone. The eligibility criteria for these positions include having minimum educational qualification of 12th standard pass and proficiency in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu or Kannada.

Based on the candidates' performance as well as business needs, a percentage of the current temporary positions are likely to be converted into permanent positions towards the end of the year, Amazon India said.

"We are continuously evaluating hiring needs across the customer service organisation in response to the growing customer demand. We estimate that customer traffic will further scale up over the next six months with the onset of Indian and global holiday seasons," Amazon India Director (Customer Service) Akshay Prabhu said.

He added that new seasonal positions will provide candidates job security and livelihood during these unprecedented times.

Earlier this year, Amazon had announced that it plans to create one million new jobs in India by 2025 through continued investments in technology, infrastructure, and its logistics network. The jobs created both directly and indirectly will be across industries, including information technology, skill development, content creation, retail, logistics, and manufacturing, and is in addition to the 700,000 jobs Amazon's investments have enabled over the last seven years in India.

In May this year, Amazon India had announced adding 50,000 seasonal roles across its warehousing and delivery network to meet the surge in online demand for products after easing of the lockdown that had been put in place in view of the coronavirus pandemic.