Amazon hires 700+ employees who were laid off due to COVID-19 in Wisconsin

KENOSHA -- Amazon officials on Monday, April 6 announced the hiring of more than 700 new employees in Wisconsin -- amid COVID-19 related layoffs. This, as Amazon officials announced the hiring of more than 80,000 nationwide "to meet the surge in demand from people relying on Amazon’s service during this stressful time, particularly those most vulnerable to being out in public."

Monday's news came as an update after the company’s March 16 announcement to hire 100,000 new full- and part-time positions across the U.S.

Amazon officials said the new hires in Wisconsin would fill a range of roles, including picking, packing and shipping customer orders and delivering packages from delivery stations to meet the needs of the COVID-19 demand surge. Many were impacted by layoffs related to COVID-19 and came from a variety of fields and life situations, including restaurant cooks, bartenders and servers, flight attendants, teachers, business owners, personal trainers, valet drivers, rideshare drivers, retirees, part-time workers with jobs on hold and people “who just wanted to help out."