Copyright Star Tribune
Amazon has same-day delivery capabilities in more than 140 metro areas. At full capacity, the Golden Valley facility will deliver roughly 23,000 items per day across 800 square miles stretching from Hudson, Wis., to Watertown, Minn., to the west and Northfield to the south. Operations are expected to ramp up to more than 50,000 deliveries per day during the holiday rush, said Mike Andrea, site leader at the Golden Valley location. Mike Andrea, site leader at Amazon’s Golden Valley same-day delivery facility, said the location's inventory will evolve as customers place more orders and preferences become more apparent. (Jerry Holt/The Minnesota Star Tribune) Amazon plans to hire 1,500 seasonal employees across its 20 operational Minnesota locations and 250,000 nationwide — a bold proclamation as other retail giants hold back on hiring announcements. It’s the third consecutive year the e-commerce company has hired at least a quarter-million seasonal workers for the busy holiday shopping period. Related Coverage Nationwide, the overall number of seasonal jobs is expected to fall to its lowest level since 2009, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The outplacement firm attributes the expected decline to higher business costs from tariffs, ongoing inflation and retailers’ growing reliance on automation. Target hasn’t announced a specific hiring goal this year, a change from last year when it sought 100,000 seasonal workers. Instead, the company said existing employees can take on extra shifts and its 43,000 on-demand workers can fill gaps as needed. Best Buy, Walmart and Costco also haven’t disclosed seasonal hiring plans. Amazon’s announcement follows a Wall Street Journal report earlier this year that the e-commerce giant has deployed nearly as many robots as it has human workers. The company said robotics now assist in roughly 75% of its global deliveries. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Amazon expects the company can avoid hiring more people in coming years through its use of robots. At the Golden Valley site, the Amazon robotics floor holds more than 1 million items. Yellow, nine-level pods packed with merchandise are lifted by blue, disc-shaped robots that resemble oversized Roombas and glide across the warehouse floor from one QR code to the next. The placement of items is random — a system that helps prevent traffic jams by avoiding clustering similar products together, said Amazon spokesman Scott Seroka. Amazon’s growth in Minnesota has alternated between rapid expansion and post-pandemic slowdowns. The company’s footprint took off with the opening of its Shakopee fulfillment center in 2016, followed by a nearby sorting center, a delivery station in Eagan and a Prime Now hub in Minneapolis. Amazon’s sales growth slowed coming out of the pandemic, prompting the Seattle-based tech giant to close or scale back smaller warehouses after years of breakneck expansion. The smaller Shakopee sortation center closed in 2023, citing an expired lease. The company purchased a large portion of the former Thomson Reuters campus in Eagan earlier this year but hasn’t disclosed its plans for the property. In May, the company abruptly halted plans for a multibillion-dollar data center in Becker amid disputes over state regulations.
