Weekly Hourly Hiring Report 9/14/21

How COVID-19 is affecting hourly work

Weekly Hourly Hiring Report 9/14/21

Highlights

Overall jobs are up 96% compared to pre-pandemic norms, with 10% month over month growth and 85% year over year growth. Google searches for hourly jobs are down 3% year over year. While active job searches have dropped, we still anticipate an uptick in the coming months—even with COVID-19 concerns. 

The Delta variant, labor shortages and supply chain issues continue to threaten economic recovery. However, the National Retail Federation predicts this year’s holiday retail sales will increase between 6.5% and 8.2%, pumping over $1 trillion into the economy. Consumers and businesses are getting an early start to the season, with many anticipating that it will be in full swing 4-6 weeks earlier than usual this year. Here’s what we’re tracking this week:

Businesses announce plans to hire in mass—pulling out all the stops to attract the workers they need both today and for the holiday season ahead.

• UPS plans to hire 100,000 seasonal workers—offering some applicants a job within 30 minutes of applying.  

• Kohl's wants to add 90,000 seasonal workers to meet customer demand. They will offer workers bonuses ranging from $100 to $400 for working through the holidays.

• Michaels is adding more than 20,000 workers, up approximately 25% from last year—using flexible staffing and competitive wages to attract hourly workers. Last year more than half of their seasonal workers were hired into permanent roles.

• Amazon increased its starting wage in the U.S. to $18 an hour while announcing plans to hire another 125,000 warehouse and transportation workers. The company offers to pay the full cost of college tuition for their 750,000 hourly U.S. employees.

Flexible work remains the leading driver of what many are calling “The great resignation.”

• 69% of hourly workers say they look for flexibility in a job description and the majority of workers leaving their current job cited lack of flexibility as a driving factor.

• Approximately 55% of workers are expected to actively seek new jobs in the next 12 months; employers of in-person hourly service jobs are losing the most workers.

• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 750,000 leisure and hospitality workers are dropping out of the workforce every month.

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics also reports that retail employment is down by 270,000 since February 2020. 

• Hourly turnover in restaurants is high—full-service restaurants are operating with 6.2 fewer employees in the back of the house and 2.8 fewer workers in the front of the house, compared with pre-pandemic staffing levels.

Making retention more critical for employers than ever before.

• 37% of hourly workers searching for seasonal work are hoping to turn it into a long term employment opportunity.

Holiday Hiring

This week we launched our Holiday Hiring 2021: A Quick Start Guide to help hourly employers and workers understand how to best prepare. We surveyed thousands of hourly workers and employers, analyzed the macro economics and labor market projections, to create a data synthesis and quick start guide to Holiday Hiring 2021—everything you really need and want to know.

Jobs

All industry data is from 3/2/20-9/13/21

Here are the latest job numbers by industry:

Quick service restaurant (QSR) jobs are down 20% compared to pre-pandemic norms, flat month over month and seeing 7% year over year growth.

Sit-down restaurant jobs are down 35% compared to pre-pandemic norms, seeing 4% month over month growth and 11% year over year growth.

Warehouse and logistics jobs are up 293% compared to pre-pandemic norms, seeing 18% month over month growth and a 174% year over year decline.

Retail jobs are up 15% compared to pre-pandemic norms, seeing 15% month over month growth and 38% year over year growth.

Grocery jobs are up 86% compared to pre-pandemic norms, seeing 1% month over month growth and 40% year over year growth.

Hospitality jobs are up 289% compared to pre-pandemic norms, seeing a 23% month over month decline and 335% year over year growth.

On demand jobs are up 219% compared to pre-pandemic norms, seeing 7% month over month growth and 184% year over year growth.

Convenience store jobs are down 7% compared to pre-pandemic norms, seeing a 2% month over month decline and 7% year over year growth.

Healthcare jobs are up 121% compared to pre-pandemic norms, seeing a 1% month over month decline and 107% year over year growth.

Workers

Google searches for hourly jobs are down 3% year over year.

The bottom line

We’ll continue to be your best resource for hourly job market insights as we collectively navigate towards our new normal and beyond.