I agree with what you say. Thanks for so clearly explaining what seasonal work means. However, when the outsourced employer fires people at the end of the season, they could just say "the season is over, we do not need you anymore". Instead, they fire a lot of their temporary workers by claiming that their metrics are low. The last bit is the disingenuous part.

I agree, the outsourced employer is the one firing you. And in those cases I believe both Amazon and the third-party employer, Adecco, where doing everything within the law. I just felt that Adecco was leading employees on. A legal, at least IMO, but somewhat disingenuous tactic.

You are right. Some co-workers felt that could lead to a steady job and Amazon pretended they needed us for a bit longer than they actually did, just to keep the workers invested in their job.

Indeed they were hiring seasonal workers, they said so and it was not a surprise to me. What I found disingenuous was firing outsourced employees with the pretense of low productivity from the employee. There simply was not enough demand.

A few years ago I worked packing items for Amazon during the Christmas season through an outsourced employer. A thing that really sucks in working for them is that your performance is recorded by automatic systems. While there is a lot of demand for products almost no one is fired, even if their performance is low. Once the season is over, the demand drastically decreases: there are just not that many objects to pack and everyone's productivity decreases as well. Then they start firing everyone because their productivity is low. For me it was fine to be fired like that. I expected it, but others were sad about it. Working with automatically-recorded metrics is super stressful because those metrics can be used as an excuse to fire people whenever Amazon wants. They could just be honest from the beginning and tell everyone we just need you for a couple of months.