Hiring Fierce Ahead of Winter Holidays
Several companies are already interviewing workers to prep for the holiday shopping season.
Sep 13, 2019
MINNEAPOLIS—It’s September, and already, companies are jostling to hire temporary workers ahead of this year’s holiday shopping season, NPR Marketplace reports. Target announced this week that it would bring an additional 130,000 workers on board, while UPS is seeking 100,000 extra staff.
To entice people to come to work for them, these companies are upping the perks, such as offering a 10% employee discount for Target workers. “People really like those kinds of incentives,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at The New School for Social Research. “People who work at Christmas also are people who have to buy Christmas and other holiday presents.”
Some companies are also targeting people whose regular work slows at the end of the year, such as farmers and college students, with special incentives, like UPS’s offer to give its seasonal employees up to $1,300 in tuition reimbursement.
All of those incentives above also include a higher-than-average starting wage. The UPS entry level wage is $14 an hour, up from $10.10 an hour in 2019, while Target will give its seasonal workers a starting wage of $13 an hour. “In general, an hour of work is rewarding people more than it has in the past,” said Peter Orazem, an economics professor at Iowa State University.
The overall tight labor market means that more companies will be paying higher wages to get the bodies they need in the door. Remarking on the labor market, Ghilarducci went on to state, “In a tight labor market, you would have to induce people who normally wouldn’t work, which means that employers would have to pay a little bit more.”
Facilities management Logistics Interviewing and selection Consumers Recruiting Transportation Demand Staffing and scheduling Wholesale distribution Workforce Sustainability Vehicles
