Holiday Demand Forces Retailers to Get Creative with Hiring Strategies

 

Black Friday is upon us, and rebounding consumer demand coupled with lingering product delays and U.S. dollar inflation is making for an unpredictable holiday demand. Retail executives have been investing in resiliency strategies for the holiday season starting last year, like putting money towards omnichannel fulfillment, more flexible operations and inventory management solutions.

Where does labor, though, fit into this equation for holiday retail success, and are employers necessarily reinvesting in more workers or a better work environment? Monthly job hires leading up to the holiday season showed promise around the amount of workers interested in retail positions, or at least showed rising strength in securing new hires. The bulk of trade, transportation and utilities hires in August, which includes the retail trade, was more than 1.1 million.

Monthly job hires in the United States in August 2021, by industry

More granularly, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in September, more than 1 million retail trade job openings turned into 893,000 hires, up from the year before, but down from August.

Regardless, the last year of disruptions to the retail supply chain have been in part due to labor challenges. Often described as a labor shortage, a more holistic analysis shows global low-wage workers withholding their labor strategically for higher pay and better benefits after the pandemic activated latent energy in the labor movement, resulting in less workers willing to jump back into the ‘same old, same old’ retailers were offering.

Now stores like Macy’s are offering $500 referral bonuses, Walmart is raising base pay to $17 an hour, and Amazon warehouse workers are being drawn in with $3000 sign on bonuses. These strategies could be paying off; NRF’s monthly economic report for November predicts retailers will hire “between 500,000 and 665,000 seasonal workers,” more than the year before.

Are retailers fundamentally changing their Black Friday hiring approach? And how competitive does holiday pay need to be to stand out as a retailer and attract enough retail associates to meet demand? DeAnna McIntosh, Executive Director & Co-Founder of The Affinity Group and Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder of BuyerLegends, joined our Black Friday Roundtable to weigh in on hiring strategy change and best practices for the holiday season.

“[My clients] were excited about this in a way, because it’s really hard for them to retain great talent at the store level. There’s always high turnover. But my clients have built true relationships with their employees, so it wasn’t as hard for them to hire new talent, but they wanted to make sure that the talent that they did bring for the holiday demand, know if they have a future there,” McIntosh said.

“I don’t care if you’re in the smallest town in the country or in the largest city, [retailers] have got to come up with a way to give people fair living wages so they can keep feeding that supply chain,” Eisenberg said. “I don’t know if there’s a minimum number, a think the minimum number is a dart throw. I think it really needs getting into those communities, which is where retail started at, local shops being there to support their communities, and we’ve got to kind of come back into that.”

For the full Black Friday Live Roundtable, where Eisenberg and McIntosh give a retail supply chain state of the union, dig into more granular supply chain trends impacting retail outlook, and offer strategies for ecommerce success, click here or head to our Events tab.

More Stories Like This:

Retailers Invested in Fulfillment and Demand Forecasting Post-Pandemic. Will it Pay Off for Black Friday?

How Consumers are Adjusting Shopping Habits for Black Friday 2021

Follow us on social media for the latest updates in B2B!

Image

Latest

future-ready workforce
Building a Future-Ready Workforce: Disrupting Outdated Education with Employer-Driven, Community-Powered, Practical Skills Training
July 28, 2025

Workforce training is undergoing a radical transformation as industries face critical talent shortages and rapid technological change. Building a future-ready workforce requires rethinking traditional higher education models. These models emphasize broad academic development over targeted skill-building and struggle to keep pace with employer demands. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report…

Read More
The Silent Health Crisis: Indoor Air Quality in Long-Term Care
July 28, 2025

The Silent Health Crisis: Indoor Air Quality in Long-Term Care Most nursing homes have infection control down to a science. They’ve got medication protocols that would make a hospital jealous. Fall prevention? They track every risk factor. But ask them about their air quality and you’ll likely get a puzzled look. That’s a problem, because…

Read More
educators
JUST THINKING… About Bringing out the Best in Educators and Learners with Ross Kimball
July 25, 2025

As the educational landscape rapidly evolves—shaped by advances in communication technology, growing mental health awareness, and post-pandemic classroom dynamics—one key question persists: How can we better connect with and empower both educators and students in the classroom? The stakes are high: studies show that teacher-student relationships directly impact student motivation, academic success, and long-term…

Read More
community
Bringing Community into the Transformation of K-12 Schools: The Impact of Mentors, Local Voices, and Student Entrepreneurs
July 24, 2025

As K-12 schools across the U.S. struggle to recover from the learning loss and emotional fallout of the pandemic, a deeper reckoning is underway—one that challenges the very foundation of who’s responsible for educating our children. Despite billions in federal relief, a third of U.S. students are not even reading at a basic level…

Read More