Washington (AFP)

US online retail giant Amazon said Thursday it has hired more than 250,000 "full-time and part-time" workers for its holiday season in its global network.

The group also reports record sales during this period thanks to the sale of tens of millions of products stamped Amazon, without however disclosing a precise figure.

In total, Amazon has 750,000 employees worldwide, he said in a statement.

At the publication of its third quarter sales, Amazon had revealed an identical number at the end of September. But the group then clarified that it did not include contract workers and temporary jobs.

"Almost 19,000 employees worldwide (...) have been promoted this year," adds Amazon.

In the United States, it has 150 delivery points that employ more than 90,000 employees in the Amazon Logistics branch.

"This holiday season has been the best ever because of our customers and employees around the world," said Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, in the release.

These figures seem to echo the data recorded by Mastercard and UPS.

Mastercard has indeed published a report Thursday indicating an increase in online commerce of almost 19% over a year between November 1 and December 24.

"E-commerce sales have hit a new record this year with more people shopping for the holiday season online," said Steve Sadove, a Mastercard advisor, in a statement.

For its part, the logistics group UPS said it expected a record number of returns of items ordered during the holiday season "which range from sweaters to the wrong size to gadgets for duplicate kitchen" .

For the time being, however, it is difficult to draw up a general picture of retail sales.

The National Federation of Retailers (NRF) will not release data for the holiday season until mid-January, a spokesperson said.

But the current data bodes well for employment in the United States.

The Labor Department will release labor market figures on January 10.

In November, the number of job creations - 266,000 - had been much better than expected. At 3.5%, the unemployment rate is at its lowest for 50 years.

© 2019 AFP