Holiday hiring is going on now at Atlanta retailers

Tuesday, October 5, 2010
by Arielle Kass
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Macy’s and Toys R Us have announced they are hiring 110,000 people between them this holiday season. Some malls, such as Town Center at Cobb, have had their seasonal job fairs.

...Because more retailers are planning to run early promotions, job seekers need to start looking for work well before they might think the holiday shopping season starts, said Maryam Morse, national retail practice leader for Philadelphia consulting firm Hay Group. She said, too, that retailers are expecting and seeing more applicants this year than they did in 2009.

“The savviest job seekers are already out there,” she said. “They’re beating the pavement, looking for jobs. There are a lot more out there this year.”

Small boutiques are also taking on workers. Shannon Kitchens, president of Sage Clothing Co., said she will add one associate at each of her four locations, as she has done in years past. Kitchens usually starts interviewing in October, so workers can be trained by the end of November, when business begins to pick up.

“Black Friday is really busy,” she said. “I reach out to past seasonal employees, to see if they’re available. A lot of kids come home from college. I tend to get a lot of inquiries.”

Morse, of the Hay Group, said there has been a slight increase in wages for seasonal hires in Atlanta. Most retail jobs still pay such workers between $7.25 and $8 an hour, she said.

Many stores at Town Center at Cobb have already filled most of their open jobs, though some are still hiring, director of marketing and business development Shelly Weidner said.

...She said hiring at Town Center took place no earlier than it did last year. Several retailers concurred, saying they normally begin interviewing for holiday positions at the end of September.

Perimeter Mall stores have posted seasonal jobs on a mall-wide hiring site and an in-mall job board, general manager Dennis Kemp said. He said he has seen more activity at this point than he did the past two years.

“Canvassing for applicants is starting a bit early this year, earlier than last year,” Kemp said. “We have seen in the last two weeks quite an increase of [job] availability. It’s probably seasonal in nature.”

Lenox Square had its own holiday job fair Saturday, with more than a dozen retailers — among them Ann Taylor, Anthropologie, Chick-fil-A, Express, Lindt Chocolate, Pottery Barn and Victoria’s Secret — looking for workers.

Both Morse and John Challenger, CEO of Chicago global outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas, suggested job seekers have flexible hours and be willing to come in later in the season, as retailers see traffic in their stores.

Challenger said total hiring may be up slightly this year as consumer confidence rises and retailers take note of it. He said, though, that many retailers remain cautious, as they do not want to be caught with too many workers.

As a result, some are still waiting until the last minute to hire seasonal workers. And, Challenger said, high turnover in part-time and seasonal work means that hiring is likely to continue through the end of the year.

A sampling of seasonal hiring:

● Toys R Us is doubling its work force for the holiday season, adding 45,000 employees at its regular and Toys R Us Express stores. That’s an additional 10,000 employees over 2009.

● Sandy Springs-based UPS is hiring the same number of seasonal workers, 50,000, including about 2,000 in Georgia.

● Macy’s has announced it is adding 65,000 temporary workers nationwide.

● Belk is hiring about 3,000 people for the season, including at least 200 in the Atlanta area. That represents a 7 percent increase for the company over 2009.

● Big Lots is bringing on both seasonal employees and full- and part-time workers to staff new stores, said David Thompson, district store trainer for the chain. If the two to 10 seasonal employees added at each store are good, he said, they can often become regular employees after the holidays, if they want to stay.

“If they get through Christmas, they get a chance to get their feet wet and see what it’s all about, and we get to see if we like them,” Thompson said.

He urged applicants to start looking no later than Nov. 1 so they could be ready to work by Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season.

“They’ve got to have the time to get oriented and trained,” he said. “After that, every day’s a Saturday.”