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Seasonal hiring increases this holiday season
YOUNGSTOWN
This year the expectation of a stronger, and longer, Christmas shopping season has led companies to hire more seasonal workers.
Seasonal hiring this year has been stronger compared with last year and maybe the last couple of years, said Benjamin Turner, director of the Trumbull County One-Stop office.
Most of the seasonal hiring at the One-Stop has been in the distribution area, he said.
“The companies are hiring more people to help stock their shelves. That bodes well because companies expect that people have more disposable income to spend,” Turner said.
Bert Cene, director of the Mahoning-Columbiana Training Association, said the Mahoning and Columbiana One-Stop locations have had “a slight” increase in the number of temporary hire orders compared to 2011.
“It hasn’t been any type of significant increase,” he said.
Joe Bell, Cafaro Co. spokesman, said he is hearing anecdotally that stores in Cafaro properties are hiring more seasonal help.
“It’s in line with where it’s been in the past,” he said.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported that more than 500,000 people were hired in 2011 as seasonal retail workers. Although the department of labor has not issued projections for this year, companies like Macy’s, Amazon, JCPenney, Walmart and Kohl’s have announced seasonal hiring that is either more or roughly the same as 2011. Best Buy was the only company found that nationally is hiring fewer seasonal workers than in 2011.
Most groups who study seasonal hiring nationally expect increases.
Nationally retailers are expected to hire between 585,000 and 625,000 seasonal workers this holiday season, according to statistics from the National Retail Federation.
The International Council of Shopping Centers Retail is predicting that seasonal hiring will increase 0.4 percent from October through December 2012 over 2011 figures. In addition, retail leaders surveyed by Hay Group management consultants predicted they would have more seasonal retail jobs and would be hiring more temporary Christmas holiday season workers to fill them.
Despite more jobs, because of the high unemployment rate the Better Business Bureau is stating competition for seasonal jobs could be difficult.
The organization is recommending that people research companies before applying. It also recommends being flexible in terms of hours and apply at places where you shop because it will help with product knowledge.
Information about various companies is available at youngstown.bbb.org. which includes complaints or other details.