How Many Employees Does Amazon Have? (The Figures In The Millions)

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Amazon is a household name, especially when it comes to purchasing books and streaming TV shows and movies. It’s an eCommerce site with a fantastic marketplace open to the whole world. 

However, Amazon is so much more than just convenient online shopping. Its also highly involved in the IT sector with Amazon Alexa and artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and the aforementioned digital streaming with Amazon Prime Video. 

Plus, did you know Amazon has now taken over the Whole Foods franchise and delivers fresh groceries through one of their subsidiary’s Amazon Fresh? With all these avenues, it really does make you wonder How Many Employees does Amazon have? 

Where It All Began

Amazon is the brainchild of Jeff Bezos, a former Wall Street worker who has a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. It was 1994 when he first created Amazon in a rented garage alongside his then-wife MacKenzie Bezos.

Interestingly, with MacKenzie being an author, they focussed on new and used books. This was a roaring success, and soon after, he opened the doors to a myriad of items and sellers, and Amazon morphed into the amazing online marketplace we see today.

Read more: How Long Is 1 Million Seconds

Employee Numbers of Amazon

As of 2021, Amazon employees a total of 1.6 million people across the globe. This includes 1.3 million in the US alone. It doesn’t take into account the extra seasonal holiday help, contract workers, or delivery drivers, which figures show to be in 100’s of 1000’s annually.

According to the US Bureau of Statistics, the nation’s private-sector workforce is around 161 million. Meaning that for every 169 people working in America, one person is working for Amazon. Whereas the only company to rival and beat Amazon as the biggest employer of this nation’s people is Walmart. Who sees figures of one from every 100 people employed within their conglomerate.

Let’s Talk Statistics

2007 saw Amazon start off with 17,000 employees. Just five years later, in 2012, this number increased substantially to 88,400. That’s an increase of 80% and 71,400 staff. This is largely due to Amazon making several acquisitions each year from around 2005 onwards, including media websites and digital retailers.

If we look at the next five years, it takes us through to 2017, when Amazon employs 566,000 people. From 2012’s figures, that’s an extra 477,600 workers and an 84.3% increase. 

A change of focus…

During this period, the company shifted its focus and stopped acquiring more online retailers. Instead, deciding to snap up technology startups like Elemental Technologies, ClusterK, and Yap, which helped Amazon Echo and Amazon Web Services really take off and explode on the market.

Our last five years have been widely interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and, most recently, the Russian vs. Ukraine war that broke out Feb 2023. Even during these trying times, Amazon’s official employees worldwide have jumped significantly, from 566,000 to 1,608,000 as of Dec 2021. That’s an incredible increase of 1,042,000 workers or 64.8%

As you can see from the chart below, the number of employees has increased each year incrementally, along with the growth of Amazon. With more traffic to the site from potential buyers to acquisitions of a multitude of different types of companies. The annual increase of employee percentages ranges from 14% – 39.4%.

Year	Amazon Employees	Yearly Increase	Increase from Previous Year	Annual % Increase
2007	17,000	0	0	0%
2008	20,700	3,700	0	17.7%
2009	24,300	3,600	100	14.8%
2010	33,700	9,400	5,400	27.8%
2011	56,200	22,500	13,100	40%
2012	88,400	32,200	10,000	36.4%
2013	117,300	28,900	3,300	24.6%
2014	154,100	36,800	7,900	23.8%
2015	230,800	76,700	39,900	33.2%
2016	341,400	110,600	33,900	32.4%
2017	566,000	224,600	114,000	39.6%
2018	674,500	108,500	116,100	16%
2019	798,000	123,500	150,000	15.5%
2020	1,298,000	500,000	376,500	38.5%
2021	1,608,000	310,000	190,000	19.3%

Holiday Season and Delivery Drivers

It’s interesting to note that the figures on the above chart DO NOT include all of the seasonal staff or delivery partners, whether directly employed via Amazon or an independent company.

As of 2021, the extra seasonal staff hired yearly for the Thanksgiving and Christmas periods is another staggering 125,000. While the numbers are huge through Amazon’s Delivery Service Partners (DSP) program. There are around 3,000 companies located around the globe that, in turn, employ 260,000 drivers to deliver Amazon’s packages.

Highest Paying Positions 

Since 2018, Amazon has been rewarding its workers with a $15 an hour minimum wage. This is more than double the minimum wage, which currently stands at $7.25 an hour on average across each of the 50 states.

If you are looking for the best paying positions within the Amazon cluster, your best bet is in the tech field, either as management or an engineer. Take a look at the highest paying positions going

Principal Software Development Engineer – $160,000

A Principal Software Development Engineer is a technical leader with a proven track record for building and growing data science and engineering teams.

Senior Engineer Manager – $160,000

A Senior Engineer Manager needs a proven track record of building software and creating architectural software using cloud technologies.

Senior Manager, Software Developer – $159,788

A Senior Manager or Software Developer is responsible for building products while procuring engineering and data science teams that deliver results.

Principal Technical Program Manager – $154,343

Principal Technical Program Managers define features and processes. They work with technical teams to implement sound solutions, drive projects, and analyze the results.

Corporate Counsel – $153,900

Corporate Counselors will collaborate with the legal team assisting business operations clients to maximize operational structuring. As well as ensuring regulatory compliances both state and federal and seeing strategic deals through to completion.

Senior Solutions Architect – $153,500

A Senior Solutions Architect provides thoughtful leadership and outstanding tech design, assisting the company’s exceptional sales and business development teams.

Senior Software Engineer – $152,400

These are needed to design and code databases, tablets, Kindle, streaming technologies, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and mobile devices. 

Senior Manager, Product Management – $151,550

Product Management Leaders are responsible for creating tools and systems to provide the best, most compelling selection for the company’s global customers.

500,000 New Employees During the Pandemic

As seen in the table, in the year 2020, right when the world came to a grinding halt, Amazon upped its workers by a staggering 500,000. That’s bigger than any annual increase we’ve seen to date. 

Here’s why…

During the pandemic, which started in March 2020, we saw the world as we know it completely change and shut down. There was a huge increase in online shopping for both household and grocery items due to such tight restrictions everywhere. This, in turn, meant that Amazon needed more workers in its warehouses to meet its needs. Plus the manpower to safely deliver all these orders.

Also, the demand for Amazon’s cloud computing services (AWS) doubled as most workers, instead of heading into their offices and schools each day, had to get used to working from home. Therefore, the strong computing power from their company’s computer systems, AWS, was needed by those working overtime to keep up with these in-house web requirements.

Want to know more about Online Shopping at Amazon?

If so, find out Does Amazon Do Price Adjustments, Can You Hide Orders On Amazon, along with all the info you need about the Amazon Order Cancellation Policy. Or you may need to know Does Amazon Take Apple Pay, Does Amazon Accept Afterpay, Does Amazon Accept PayPal, or even Can You Split Payments On Amazon? Or if you’ve got a gift card, Where Is The Claim Code On An Amazon Gift Card.

With regards to package arrival, find out Does Amazon Prime Deliver On Sunday and How Late Does Amazon Deliver, as well as what to do if Amazon Delivered To The Wrong Address, or how about How To Buy Amazon Returns to make some much-needed extra cash on the side.

If you’ve just started a job at Amazon, you will want to know Does Amazon Give Bonuses and all about their various policies, including the Amazon Termination Policy, the Amazon VTO Policy, the Amazon Transfer Policy, the Amazon HR Policy, the Amazon UPT Policy, and the Amazon Rehire Policy for 2023.

How Many Employees Does Amazon Have – Final Thoughts

Despite Amazon and all its subsidiary companies already being one of the world’s leaders in workforce numbers. According to Amazon’s CFO Brian Olsavsky, the demand for increasing their employment numbers remains at an all-time high.

With official employment figures in the millions and such great treatment for its workers. There are no signs of jobs at Amazon becoming scarce anytime soon. With great benefits and an amazing baseline rate of pay. Amazon is proving time and time again why it’s one of the leading employers across the globe.

Happy shopping with Amazon, or the best of luck if you’re applying for a job at Amazon.