Big retailers try to lure holiday help
Chicago Tribune
Retailers won’t just be battling each other for customers this holiday season — they’re also gearing up to fight over the temporary workers who will make the sales.
A strong economy has retailers expecting a busy holiday shopping season, but with unemployment near historic lows, staffing up to handle extra demand could be a challenge.
“It’s going to be a real battle for these retailers to get the right labor in,” said Andrew Challenger, vice president of Chicago-based outplacement and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Target plans to hire 120,000 people to fill seasonal jobs in its 1,839 stores, about 20 percent more than last year.
That matches the number of jobs Amazon announced ahead of last year’s holiday season and is the largest seasonal hiring estimate from a bricks-and-mortar retailer since Challenger, Gray & Christmas began tracking the figure in 2012.
Target said it needs more seasonal workers to handle online orders from stores, such as in-store or curbside pickup or shipping items to customers’ homes.
FedEx also said it plans to hire more seasonal workers this year: 55,000, up from 50,000 in 2017.
Macy’s plans to hire about 80,000 seasonal workers, the same number it initially announced last year before adding another 7,000 holiday jobs in December. But fewer of this year’s group of holiday hires will be working in Macy’s stores. About 23,500 of the 80,000 jobs are in fulfillment centers handling online orders, up from 18,000 last year, the Cincinnati-based department store chain said.
The workers losing jobs on the sales floor at closing stores aren’t necessarily the same ones getting new jobs in fulfillment centers, but more new jobs have been announced than cut, Mr. Challenger said.
Kohl’s and J.C. Penney began hiring seasonal workers significantly earlier than in prior years.
Wisconsin-based Kohl’s announced in June that seasonal jobs were available at more than 300 stores. Target and Macy’s have scheduled nationwide hiring events in October.