Analysts expect holiday sales to be solid. But retailers, they say, won’t be hiring many extra employees to manage the flow of customers.
Every fall Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., a global outplacement consultancy, releases a holiday hiring outlook. This year the firm expects retailers to hire only the same amount of staff as last year, roughly 755,000 nationwide from October to December.
For comparison, the largest holiday hiring boom came in 1999 when retailers hired an extra 850,000 to manage the gift shopping crowds.
However, less positions do not mean you necessarily will have to fight for a job.
So, if you are looking for extra work this holiday season, where do you find it?
Probably not in the traditional places. Currently, the nation’s unemployment rate is at a seven-year low. The Wall Street Journey reported last month that large retailers and delivery services are struggling to find enough employees to fill their warehouse and distribution centers.
The problem is expected to trickle down to delivery services such as United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp.
The upside to this – employers are more willing to work with staff who can only work certain hours. And, some firms may be offering as much as $2 more an hour this year, the newspaper reported.
UPS plans to hire 95,000 seasonal employees this year, nationwide, with a base starting salary of $10.10 an hour. Last year FedEx hired 50,000 additional workers nationwide and Amazon hired more than 80,000.
The report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas points out that most holiday jobs are not in retail store fronts as cashiers but in these backrooms, warehouses and shipping facilities.
For more information about holiday jobs with nationwide delivery services, check out these sites:
