All of you who braved the “Black Friday” crowds today (or maybe even got your Holiday shopping started early after Thanksgiving dinner), know that there are a lot of people out there shopping.
But all those bargain-hunting shoppers point to something else as well: there are also a lot of temporary seasonal workers out on the job, too.
Estimates are that some 700,000 seasonal workers will be hired here in the U.S. during the last quarter of 2012, making an average of $16 per hour. Amazon.com alone — the world’s largest online retailer — says it will hire some 50,000 temp workers to help with the holiday crunch.
Yes, there is a lot of hiring that is going on this year as the economy slowly, gradually crawls to an economic recovery in the wake of the Great Recession.
48% more seasonal workers this year
That’s all good news, of course, but here’s a little more detail on holiday hiring this year from digital interviewing company Hire Vue. They recently conducted an online survey with Aon Hewitt and Wakefield Research, and it is based on results from 500 retail managers with hiring authority in October 2012.
Best of all, they put all the findings into a pretty cool information graphic that you’ll find here, but before you get to that, here are a few highlights of the survey worth breaking out:
- Slightly half (53 percent) of retail managers expect customers to spend more this year, and as a result, 48 percent plan to hire more seasonal workers than they did last year.
- More than 80 percent of retail managers with hiring authority believe seasonal hires are the best way to find full-time employee prospects.
- Slightly more than 1 in 4 (28 percent) anticipate offering permanent positions to half or more of their 2012 seasonal hires.
- Some 53 percent of respondents believe they hired the wrong candidates for their open positions in the past because they did not interview enough individuals.
These numbers may not sound as large as you might expect, but they DO show SOME progress as the U.S. economy tip-toes to a recovery from the downturn we’ve faced these last five years. CareerBuilder CEO Matt Ferguson seemed to get it right when he pointed out last month that:
We’re seeing continued evidence of stability and growth in the U.S. job market. A dramatic upswing in hiring is not likely to happen in the near term, but we’re setting the stage for better job creation in 2013 and beyond.”
So, take a good look at this info graphic below. There is a lot of solid information that may give you some insights into YOUR hiring strategy for next year.