Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — With the holiday season fast approaching, retail businesses have expanded their workforce to handle a greater volume of products and customers.
But the temporary hiring process isn't quite over for some businesses in the state.
Cris Roller and her son, Derek, are pulling the extra weight at their family-owned gift wrapping and packaging supply business until their two part-time job postings are answered.
"I haven't hired anybody yet," Cris Roller said. "Normally, I've been able to hire friends or family. Hopefully we'll get somebody in."
Roller has owned and operated PAK-N-Wrap in Sandy since 2012. The store stays open year-round, but just as they are for other businesses, the latter months are the most prosperous and labor-intensive.
"We do about three times the business in the fourth quarter than we do during the rest of the year," she said.
For other companies such as Coppin's Hallmark, additional hiring starts as early as September in preparation for the holiday season. The company's distribution center and seven store locations collectively take on an extra 20 people, increasing the company's workforce by 30 percent, according to John Coppin, the company's CEO.
"It's pretty dramatic," Coppin said. "The month of December will be roughly four to five times the business we do in other months."
While the extra hands lighten the load for permanent employees, temporary hiring brings with it the difficulty of training new employees on an accelerated timeline.
If you're looking for something that's just temporary, maybe earn a little extra cash before the holiday season, that can be a great option.
–Nic Dunn, Utah Department of Workforce Services
"The challenge is getting people up to speed," Coppin said. "Our average store has about 15,000 items in a fairly small space. … There's just a lot of product knowledge that people don't recognize that happens in our type of industry."
Statewide employment typically increases by up to 8,000 jobs every year during the holidays, according to Mark Knold, supervising economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services.
Most of those extra hires occur in retail, transportation and hospitality industries, particularly in mail delivery companies and Utah's ski resorts.
"That holiday hiring is high enough that when you look at all the months in the year, the highest employment numbers occur in December," Knold said.
Utah's dropping unemployment rates don't appear to have put a damper on the number of seasonal employees companies hire, he added. In 2006, when Utah's unemployment rate was 2.5 percent, seasonal hires approached 9,000. In 2008, when unemployment rates neared 8 percent, only 3,800 seasonal jobs were taken during the holiday season, according to Knold.
"A lot of it will boil down to the companies, how many they can hire, how things are going for them this year," he said.
Knold said the state has seen a fairly consistent average in seasonal hires during the holidays over the past decade, despite a rapidly growing population and economy. The reason, he says, is that families are shopping from home now more than ever.
"I think with the volume that's missing here, online shopping is filling in that void," Knold said. "As a share of what it is in relation to the population, (seasonal employment) has actually fallen."
Nic Dunn, spokesman for the Utah Department of Workforce Services, said seasonal jobs can provide first-time employment opportunities for those with little experience and reliable openings for those looking for a way back into the workforce.
"The clear opportunity for it is you know there's going to be an increase in demand in these different industries for seasonal workers," Dunn said. "If you're looking for something that's just temporary, maybe earn a little extra cash before the holiday season, that can be a great option."
