In brief: Amazon has taken a number of steps to cope with the ongoing pandemic including distributing personal protective gear to employees, increasing pay for hourly workers, doubling the regular hourly base pay for every overtime hour worked and extending the refund window for items purchased during March and April.
Amazon on Monday said it is adding 75,000 additional jobs to help meet customer demand and assist existing employees in fulfilling orders for essential products. That's in addition to the 100,000 jobs it has already added to help keep people working during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
The e-commerce giant said it is also increasing capacity for grocery delivery from Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh. Due to the influx of customers now shopping for groceries online, Amazon said it is temporarily asking new Fresh and Whole Foods customers to sign up for a waiting list. As capacity increases, they'll invite new customers to shop with them.
Some stores will see their hours adjusted to give employees more time to restock shelves and sanitize stores. What's more, some locations will have their hours adjusted to focus exclusively on fulfilling grocery orders. The Whole Foods in Woodland Hills, California, for example, has been converted to an online-only store to exclusively fulfill grocery delivery orders.
The company is also building its own lab to test workers for Covid-19 and is actively combating price gouging on its platform. Furthermore, they've added "unattended delivery" as an option for Prime Now, Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market deliveries to minimize contact with others and have established a relief fund for partners and seasonal associates.
Investors are responding to the changes in a positive way as share value in Amazon is up more than five percent on the day.