Lisa Pendry has been laid off eight times since 2008, and each time it's been even harder to find a new job.

This time, she's spent three months searching. But it's tricky to find companies that are hiring, she says, and even more difficult to get an in-person interview.

Which is why she woke up early, put on a flowered top and arrived at this parking lot in Baltimore, eager to meet someone who might hire her.

“I’ve got three kids to feed,” said Pendry, 44, who most recently worked as an administrative assistant for Allstate Insurance. “It doesn’t matter what it is anymore. I just need a job.”

The possibility of an hourly position drew thousands of people to Amazon’s warehouse in Baltimore Wednesday morning, where they started lining up at 4 a.m. and waited hours in rows that snaked through the sprawling parking lot on a blistering hot day.

The on-site interviews were part of a one-day effort by Amazon to fill 50,000 jobs across the country that it says are necessary to fuel an ever-growing expansion. The e-commerce giant says it made scores of job offers on the spot at a dozen locations from Buffalo, N.Y., to Oklahoma City.

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