The holidays are coming and so are the shoppers. But will retailers have enough seasonal help to meet demand?
The question this year draws a nontraditional answer.
“In normal times you'd have a more stable workforce and be augmenting with seasonal employees, which is typical anytime you go into the holiday season,” said Rachel Michelin, president and CEO of the California Retailers Association, a Sacramento-based trade association that represents all segments of the retail industry. “But obviously, this is heightened now because we already had a labor shortage prior to going into the traditional holiday season. So, I think it's just a workforce issue in general and not a seasonal type of (situation).”
Holidays are an important time for retail. According to Deloitte, holiday sales this year are projected to be between 7% and 9% higher than last year.
In preparation for a blockbuster shopping season, numerous big-box stores, including Target and Kohl’s, and ecommerce giant Amazon, are pulling out all the stops to attract both permanent and seasonal workers.
Target reports it will pay an additional $2 per hour for existing team members and holiday helpers who work every weekend between Nov. 20 and Dec. 19, and the day before and after Christmas.
Kohl’s is offering bonus payments of between $100 and $400 to its regular and seasonal employees who stay through the holiday season, according to the retailer’s website.
And Amazon is looking for seasonal help to work in its warehouses and load packages onto trucks. The e-commerce behemoth is offering pay as high as $22 per hour and signing bonuses of up to $3,000, it stated on its website.
But Michelin argues it’s the smaller shopkeepers who may be on the winning end of securing holiday workers.
“In the whole scheme of things, smaller retailers and independent retailers might have a better opportunity to weather the storm because of personal connections, as opposed to some of our larger corporate retailers,” she said. “I've seen family members and close friends jumping in. And I've seen chambers of commerce really try to step it up in trying to do hiring.”
Michelin advises retailers in need of seasonal help try to be flexible, which she acknowledges can be challenging during the holiday rush.
“It might mean that someone could say, ‘Hey, I can only work one day a week,’” she said. “And you take it. You take whatever you can get in order to continue to keep your doors open.”
Retailers also are turning to staffing firms for an assist in landing holiday workers.
“In particular, we redeploy appropriately skilled associates who are coming off nonretail-related assignments and also those who want to work additional time to meet a 40-hour work week,” said Chandra Pappas, executive vice president of Sonoma-based Nelson Staffing. “We also rely heavily on referrals and also pipeline candidates through local colleges.”
In addition, the firm has had success recruiting and placing retired job candidates who are seeking part-time work opportunities, Pappas said.
Historically, Nelson’s retail clients haven’t needed to retain seasonal workers beyond the holidays, but that could change, Pappas said.
“We’ve recently seen an increased number of clients converting our associates to permanent employees,” she said. “However, it’s a bit too early to tell if this is a growing trend.”
Cheryl Sarfaty covers tourism, hospitality, health care and education. She previously worked for a Gannett daily newspaper in New Jersey and NJBIZ, the state’s business journal. Cheryl has freelanced for business journals in Sacramento, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge. Reach her at cheryl.sarfaty@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4259.
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October 26, 2021 at 12:26AM
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As retailers compete for workers, smaller local businesses may have an edge - North Bay Business Journal
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