Slough – 1 October, 2012 – Amazon has today announced that it will hire more than 10,000 temporary employees in its UK fulfilment centres during the busy Christmas period. Associates will be recruited on temporary contracts to support the seasonal surge in demand in the run up to the festive season.

Recruitment for the jobs is already underway and those interested in applying for a temporary role can visit www.amazon-operations.co.uk.

“On our busiest shopping day last Christmas, we saw customers order a total of three million items during one 24-hour period at a rate of 35 items every second,” said Catherine McDermott, Director of Operations at Amazon.co.uk Ltd. “We look forward to welcoming a good number of new faces to our centres over the coming weeks as well as welcoming back temporary employees who join us every year over the Christmas period.”

In the last three years, thousands of UK employees initially on temporary contracts have moved into permanent roles.

“We are a company in growth and when we have permanent positions to fill, it’s the top performing temporary employees that we look to,” said Catherine McDermott.

The creation of the seasonal roles comes shortly after the opening of Amazon’s eighth UK fulfilment centre, in Hemel Hempstead, which will create 600 permanent jobs. Amazon has also announced that it will create 2,000 additional permanent new jobs at three further UK fulfilment centres over the next two years.

At the Christmas 2011 peak, Amazon’s UK fulfilment centres shipped over 2.1m units in one 24 hour period – a total of 1,124 tonnes of goods – which meant a delivery truck left a fulfilment centre once every two minutes and 45 seconds.

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For further information please contact the Amazon.co.uk Ltd Press Office
Email: pressoffice@amazon.co.uk Tel: 020 8636 9280

About Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.co.uk opened its virtual doors in October 1998 and strives to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavours to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.

Amazon.co.uk and other sellers offer millions of new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Baby, Books, Car & Motorbike, Clothing, DIY & Tools, DVD, Electronics & Photo, Grocery, Health & Beauty, Home & Garden, Jewellery, MP3, Music, Musical Instruments & DJ, Office, PC, Pet Supplies, Shoes, Software, Sports & Leisure, Toys & Games, Video Games and Watches.

Kindle and Kindle 3G are the revolutionary portable readers that wirelessly download books, magazines, newspapers, blogs and personal documents to a crisp, high-resolution electronic ink display that looks and reads like real paper. Kindle 3G utilises the same 3G wireless technology as advanced mobile phones, so users never need to hunt for a Wi-Fi hotspot. Kindle is the #1 bestselling product across the millions of items sold on Amazon.com.

Amazon Web Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business.

Amazon.co.uk is a trading name for Amazon EU S.a.r.l, Amazon Services Europe S.a.r.l and Amazon Media EU S.a.r.l. All three are wholly owned subsidiaries of global online retailer Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), located in Seattle, Washington.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.cn, and www.amazon.it. As used herein, “Amazon.com,” “we,” “our” and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.