Amazon to hire 120,000 temporary workers for Christmas period

US e-commerce giant Amazon has revealed it plans to hire 120,000 seasonal workers for the festive period, a 20% increase on last year's hires.

As the busy Christmas period for retailers approaches, many ecommerce and traditional companies are hiring extra staff to cope with the demand, but Amazon appears to be outgunning the rest in this regard.

The likes of Target and Macy's are taking on approximately the same amount of temporary workers as last year.

The company said on Thursday that over 14,000 full-time positions were created as a result of the seasonal hires last year, and it expects to see the same level of transition this year.

Amazon vice president of Global Customer Fulfillment Mike Roth said they expect increased demand for their products this year.

"This is our favorite time of year—we love serving customers during the busy holiday season and we’re excited to bring on more than 120,000 seasonal employees this year to support growing customer demand," Roth said.

Amazon's stock has soared 12% in the last three months as it focuses on broadening its monthly subscription service Prime, by offering more and more services as part of the package.