Online sales growth is reshaping what seasonal hiring looks like.
Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
Americans are still buying plenty of stuff for the holidays.
Sales continue to shift online, and that calls for a shift in staffing.
Seasonal retail hiring is shifting from a sales-floor focus to more logistics and delivery roles.
The annual holiday shopping rush needs a lot of workers to keep everything moving.
In the last few years, that seasonal hiring spree has appeared to soften, at least when it comes to traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. One industry estimate projects this year will see about 450,000 seasonal jobs in the retail sector, the lowest gain in nearly 20 years .
But that’s not the whole picture.
An analysis from Indeed last month found that retail jobs have slid from about two-thirds of all seasonal jobs in 2019 to around 61% this year. That five-percentage-point decline has mostly reappeared as an increase in loading and stocking roles.
Since that report came out, Amazon bumped up its hiring target to 300,000 seasonal workers , up 50,000 from the prior few years, and UPS said Monday it’s looking to add 100,000 seasonal workers this year.
And while neither Walmart nor Target have announced similar companywide goals, both retailers say they’ve been staffing up ahead of the season with local stores hiring seasonal workers as needed.
Within stores, more of the work is shifting from traditional sales work like cashiering and more toward stocking and fulfillment to meet growing online demand.
For many Walmart stores, digital teams are some of the fastest-growing, and digital fulfillment is a common expectation on seasonal associate job listings. And on Target’s jobs board on Wednesday, nearly all of the 4,000 seasonal job listings reference inbound restocking duties.
Some smaller retailers, like Five Below and Dick’s Sporting Goods, are still aiming to hire thousands of seasonal workers this year, but across the industry those numbers are increasingly giving way to roles more focused on logistics and e-commerce.
Of course, in-store business is still king for retailers.
Foot traffic from location data firm Placer.ai shows that Walmart, Target, and other mass merchandise retailers had increases in visits during the week leading up to Black Friday. Other specialty categories saw surges of two to four times their average daily traffic on Black Friday.
Even so, as retailers use their stores to fulfill a growing number of online orders at increasingly fast speeds , seasonal hiring is likely to continue adapting to meet the new demand.
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