Recession Places Coal in Christmas Stockings of Temporary Workers : Employment: Applicants are finding fewer jobs available as work forces are cut in anticipation of low holiday sales.
Most years, people take seasonal jobs for extra holiday cash and employee discounts on merchandise. This year, however, such jobs are often a matter of survival.
With fewer full-time, permanent positions available in recession-riddled Orange County, job seekers are, in desperation, trying to find a few weeks of work during the Christmas holidays. But the outlook in the market for temporary jobs is not much better.
“I have a master’s degree in recreation, so hopefully they will let me serve chicken,” said Susan Immer of Cypress as she filled out an application for a seasonal job last week at Knott’s Berry Farm here.
Applicants are finding fewer jobs available as companies reduce their work forces in anticipation of low Christmas sales. Employers are hiring later than usual and may be taking a closer look at seasonal jobs that do not contribute directly to the bottom line, such as greeters or gift wrappers.
“There will be fewer people on the selling floor, but there will be a proportionately smaller number of customers,” said Jack Fraser, vice president of the National Retail Merchants Assn. in Washington.
Knott’s officials expected 150 prospective applicants to show up when the amusement park held a job fair earlier this month to select clerks for its Christmas gift centers at local shopping malls. To their surprise, 450 job seekers came, and about 100 were hired.
While most chains have reduced their number of holiday hires, a few actually plan to hire more part-time help. Clothestime, an Anaheim-based chain whose discount orientation has boosted its sales of young women’s clothing in the midst of recession, is one of them.
“Our applications are up, but we’re hiring more,” said Norman Abramson, president of the chain of more than 400 stores. The manager of the average Clothestime in Southern California expects to have 80 to 100 applications for about seven to 10 holiday jobs.
The deluge of applications means managers can choose from among better qualified candidates. “From an employer standpoint, it’s great,” Abramson said. The average age of applicants is a little older--late 20s and early 30s--and their work experience more varied.
Nordstrom, one of the most successful department store chains in the nation, is seeking applicants for holiday jobs in Orange County. But job seekers may find far fewer employment periods available than in the past, when they could hold steady work from the day after Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve. This year, they may find work immediately after Thanksgiving and just before and after Christmas.
“We hire according to need, and in retail it goes in peaks and valleys,” said Linda Luna-Franks, a county spokeswoman for the Seattle-based retailer.
Many Nordstrom workers have already been through this employment roller coaster. The retailer cut its work force in October and started bringing back workers earlier this month. The chain employs about 2,500 workers at its three main county stores.
Many of the temporary workers are vastly overqualified. Job applicant Immer said she has scouted in vain for a permanent job related to her degree in recreation but decided to seek temporary work to tide her through the holidays if nothing turned up by Friday.
A mother of two adult children who is trying to re-enter the work force after 12 years of volunteer work with the Girl Scouts, Immer said she is ready to take whatever work she can find.
Pat Sunne and Elaine Gilbert, a Buena Park couple, are desperately trying to find holiday jobs as they prepare for the birth of their first child. In fact, both would like to find two jobs each, but Gilbert said applying at 12 companies so far has shown her just how tough the market is.
“There are a lot of people applying and a lot being laid off,” Gilbert said.
Debbie Rodriguez of Buena Park knows both sides of the fence. As the part-time clerk in a Christian book store in the Buena Park Mall, she sees the line of job seekers coming in daily to apply for minimum-wage clerk jobs. But she too has recently been looking for work.
Rodriguez said she needed to take the part-time, minimum-wage job because her family’s “cash flow is going down, down, down.”
But she added that she cannot resume her career as a manager because all such positions require 50- to 60-hour workweeks. That’s too many hours away from home for her and her husband, who are rearing children ages 10, 12 and 15.
There are others, though, who are worse off. Rodriguez said she saw many desperate job seekers when she worked as a manager at a McDonald’s restaurant earlier this year.
“I felt bad because people would come in saying they were hungry,” she said.
