Amazon offers £1,000 bonus to 'urgently needed' new starters

Online delivery giant Amazon is offering new starters a £1,000 golden handshake as it faces a staffing crisis.
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The retail titan is advertising for “urgently needed” warehouse pickers and packers across the UK to help meet booming online shopping demand.

Job ads on the Indeed website reveal it is offering to pay up to £1,000 as a starting bonus for a raft of roles, on top of an hourly rate of as much as £11.10 an hour, rising to £22.20 an hour for overtime.

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It comes as UK firms are struggling to fill roles across a range of industries, with issues caused by Brexit, coronavirus self-isolation rules and with millions still on the furlough workers’ support scheme.

Amazon is offering new starters a £1,000 bonusAmazon is offering new starters a £1,000 bonus
Amazon is offering new starters a £1,000 bonus

The recruitment woes are causing crippling shortages of lorry drivers, while hospitality firms have also struggled to fill roles on reopening after lockdown.

Official data last month showed there were 953,000 vacancies in the three months to the end of June – with vacancies passing one million for the first time ever in July.

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The roles up for grabs at Amazon span warehouses nationwide, including Darlington, Dartford, Swansea, Redditch and Coventry.

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Applicants who are taken on between now and September 18 are eligible for the bonus.

According to the job ads, Amazon is offering “immediate starts with no experience needed” for many of the warehouse roles.

Amazon is not the only firm offering joining bonuses to attract much-needed workers, with firms such as Tesco and Asda offering lorry drivers £1,000 on sign up.

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