Amazon to add 100,000 new jobs

US online retail giant Amazon says it will add another 100,000 new jobs to support an increase in online shopping amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

New full and part-time jobs will be available in the United States and Canada.

Pay begins at $US15 ($A21) an hour and sign-on bonuses of $US1000 dollars will be available in some cities, the company said on Monday.

"We are opening 100 buildings this month alone across new fulfillment and sortation centres, delivery stations, and other sites," Dave Clark, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations at Amazon, said in a statement.

The US unemployment rate spiked to 14.7 per cent in April after millions of people lost their jobs due to COVID-19.

The jobless rate dropped to 8.4 per cent in August after the economy began to recover slowly but there are still around 11 million fewer jobs in August than there were before the pandemic.

As the job market took a hit, Amazon appeared to be one of the few companies that continued to expand as people avoided in-person shopping.

Monday's announcement will be the fourth large hiring campaign the online retail giant has initiated this year.

Amazon hired 175,000 temporary employees during the first months of the pandemic to keep up with unprecedented demand for online shopping.

It said in May that it had decided to keep 70 per cent of them permanently.