This is the kind of Christmas Creep we can be down with: Although it’s still only mid-October, retailers have been announcing how many jobs they’ll be adding to the rolls this holiday season. And Amazon just dropped a doozy of a number, which should make plenty of people’s season’s bright — it says it will hire 50,000 workers this year as part of its seasonal hiring plan.

Not only that, but some of those workers will stay at the company in full-time positions after the holiday, repots CNN. There are currently 20,000 people employed at the online behemoth’s 40 fulfillment centers in the U.S., so adding more than twice that number will swell the company’s ranks significantly.

Those holiday workers will largely be in charge of anything that gets your order to you — from grabbing the physical items off warehouse shelves or packing them up to ship (sometimes with a bit more packing material than is necessary, eh guys?) or shuttling merchandise from different departments when it comes in as returned.

The holiday boost is pretty big this year — the total for all U.S. retailers is close to about 413,700 workers and there could be more announced yet. It’s the highest amount of seasonal workers there’s been in five years.

Here are some other totals from around the retail world: Macy’s — 80,000 temporary workers; Toys ‘R’ Us — 45,000 seasonal workers, up 5,000 from last year; Target — about 80,000 workers (which is down from last year) and Kohl’s — 52,700 seasonal workers.

The more people are working and making money, the more likely they are to take that cash out and buy things themselves, which necessitates the need for more jobs which really means, as we’ve said before, consumers make the economy go. So it’s a good thing.

Amazon to hire 50,000 seasonal workers [CNN]

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