By Maria Armental

Amazon.com Inc. will pay front-line employees a special holiday bonus as the e-commerce giant responds to a surge in online sales during the coronavirus pandemic that's driving record results.

"Our teams are doing amazing work serving customers' essential needs, while also helping to bring some much-needed holiday cheer for socially-distanced families around the world," Dave Clark, senior vice president of world-wide operations, wrote in a blog post.

U.S. operations employees working for Amazon from Dec. 1 through Dec. 31 qualify for a bonus of $300 for full-time employees and $150 for part-time employees, Mr. Clark said. In all, the special bonus will total more than $500 million, he said.

Amazon, which has faced criticism from workers over its response to the virus, earlier paid a similar one-time bonus for front-line workers and delivery partners.

In October, the tech giant said more than 19,000 employees had tested positive for the new coronavirus and said it continued to ramp up its in-house Covid-19 testing program with capacity reaching 50,000 tests a day across 650 sites by November.

Amazon reported a profit of $14.11 billion on $260.51 billion in net sales for the first nine months of the year and projected $112 billion to $121 billion in sales this quarter. In 2019, Amazon generated a $11.59 billion profit on $280.52 billion in sales.

Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

11-27-20 0926ET