Retail outlets hiring seasonal workers to assist in-store, online
Sara Pollard works at an Old Navy near her home in Avon, Ohio, when she’s back from school for summer and winter break. “I still hang out with some of the people I worked with three years ago,” Pollard says. “It’s just fun. Busy, hectic, you work really hard. But people are both insane and wonderful. They go crazy looking for a specific size and then give you a hug when you start cleaning up their mess because they feel so bad about it. It’s nuts.”
With that attitude, Pollard, at the age of 19, seems like she’s a throwback to a bygone era. Many of today’s high school and college students don’t necessarily want to work in a physical location, opting instead for jobs that focus on completing tasks for others.
Perhaps the growing disinterest in jobs in retail stores is mirrored by the drop in sales in physical retail stores, as more chains seemingly announce store closings every week.
A decrease in locations is just one of the reasons researchers at Challenger, Gray & Christmas say this year’s seasonal hiring is off from last year, which dropped off by 6 percent and is indicative of a downward trend in retail sales. This year, the numbers appear to be continuing that trends, at least for brick-and-mortar stores.
“The shift to online shopping in retail means traditional retailers will likely not hire the numbers they once did,” writes Andrew Challenger, vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., in his firm’s report on 2019 seasonal hiring. “However, these holiday jobs seem to be appearing in transportation and warehousing, as retailers rely more and more on fulfillment centers.”
And if people don’t have money to spend, they’ll shop less for the holidays. “Seasonal hiring is driven primarily by current consumer spending habits. Consumers, at the moment, are spending, with the latest figures suggesting consumers are going further into credit card debt. Unless this changes significantly this month, Retailers will likely hire at similar levels to last year,” writes Challenger.
Filling fulfillment
As Challenger points out, as retail hiring trends point downward for physical stores, they’re trending upward for those businesses who either sell their products online or are responsible for delivering those products to holiday shoppers. UPS announced they would be hiring 100,000 workers for the upcoming holiday season while Amazon is hiring 30,000 seasonal workers for warehouse, packing and shipping jobs. “One of the more interesting aspects of the current economy is how there is a direct relationship between gain and loss in specific but related industries,” says Richard Chance, a Los Angeles-based employment analyst. “When jobs are taken from one sector — in this case, brick-and-mortar retail — they are made up for in another — in this case, warehousing, packaging and delivering. I’m sure there are thousands of employees who once worked for a big-box retailer who are now on the delivery side of the business.”
Open for business
In addition to Dick’s Sporting Goods, several other traditional retailers have ramped up their hiring for the holidays, including Macy’s, which includes Bloomingdale’s, plans on hiring 30,000 seasonal workers; Kohl’s, 90,000 seasonal workers; Michaels, 15,000; Best Buy; Target, 132,000; Gap Inc., which includes the namesake retailer, as well as Banana Republic, Old Navy and Athleta, 5,000; 1-800-Flowers.com and its various businesses, including The Popcorn Factory, Harry & David, Cheryl’s Cookies and Shari’s Berries, 9,000; and J.C. Penney, 37,000. Officials at Crate & Barrel and Best Buy say they’ll be hiring thousands of employees as well.
Kohl’s, like other traditional retailers who have built a strong, online presence, is stocking up on seasonal employees for both its physical and online stores, posting job listings for retail sales positions and operations associates for its brick-and-mortar locations and material handlers, who will select, pack and distribute orders for the store’s onlineservicing warehouse.
Escape plan
Pollard says there’s an added benefit of a seasonal job. “I love my family, but I think we all understand that I’m not home 10 months a year so their tolerance for me is probably less than it used to be,” she says. “And if I’m being honest, my tolerance is probably less for them, too. So some days, if I’m annoyed or they’re annoyed, I just get up and leave. I tell them I have to go to work, even if I don’t. And usually, if I just show up at the store and it’s crazy there, they put me to work.”