State’s Retailers in a Struggle to Fill Holiday Jobs

With the holiday shopping season approaching amid the lowest U.S. unemployment rate in nearly a quarter of a century, California retailers are working harder to entice seasonal employees to do everything from stocking shelves to greeting customers at the door.

The result could be longer lines and less service for shoppers while retailers try some creative and aggressive hiring strategies.

It’s the second straight year that retailers are hard-pressed to find qualified help. As the economy continues its steady growth, fewer Americans are looking for seasonal jobs to earn extra cash.

“We are experiencing an increasing shortage of team members,” said Scott La Fond, regional personnel manager for Southern California Target stores. Last year, La Fond said, local Targets could barely fill their positions. As a result, employees worked longer hours.

“Whenever you can’t fill a job, it puts a lot of strain on all the other team members,” he said. La Fond said he believes prospective employees have become more selective during the holiday seasons in the last three years.

“I think certainly when you have a surplus of jobs, it’s easier to pick and choose,” he said.

This year, Target managers have used different strategies to lure employees. They have started recruiting earlier, swarming schools and job fairs, La Fond said. Employees are also encouraged to recommend their friends and family members for openings.

Depending on the volume, Target hires between 20 and 100 employees per store for the holiday season, which typically begins at the end of October and lasts for 90 days. Part-time, temporary employees earn between $5.15 and $6 an hour.

In Southern California, all Target stores are still hiring, La Fond said.

Nationwide, stores have had to employ more extreme tactics to lure workers.

The Target store in Kansas City has gone beyond the city limits to find employees. To accommodate workers who live far from the store, the retailer has hired private buses and asked the local transit authority to alter city bus routes.

“We’ve had to make some very big strategy efforts to get workers,” said Steve Kenady, regional personnel director at Target, a division of Minneapolis-based Dayton Hudson. “The competition for service workers is incredible. You can’t just depend that they will want to come to your stores.”

Kmart advertises seasonal job opportunities on pamphlets stuffed into its credit card bills. The Troy, Mich.-based retailer also posts job openings on the Internet.

But the scramble to find holiday help is more likely to be store-by-store. Personnel managers at Mervyn’s and Macy’s, for example, say they saw the trend coming and prepared early.

Federated Department Stores’ Macy’s department store chain installed an 800 number that has facilitated the application process, said Carol Jackson, regional director of human resources at Macy’s Del Amo Fashion Center store.

“As a result of instituting the new number, several stores have received a high caliber of candidates, and we’re receiving increased applications in all locations,” she said.

When a job candidate calls, they are directed to the three Macy’s stores closest to them. Initial interviews and appointments are conducted over the telephone.

At Mervyn’s, also a unit of Dayton Hudson, employees are offered cross-company discounts, which means Mervyn’s employees can get discounts of up to 20% at Target stores. That is just one of the incentives Mervyn’s began this year to recruit and retain employees, said Carol Johnson, a spokesperson for Mervyn’s California.

“We’ve seen the trend coming and have reacted to it in advance,” Johnson said.

During the holiday season, Mervyn’s hires 10,000 statewide, Johnson said. “We have been pretty good at getting out front and planning in advertising. Like Target, Mervyn’s employers have attended job fairs as early as September. Advertising has also been more aggressive.”

But some analysts believe that retailers, desperate to curb potential long lines at the register and avoid customer dissatisfaction, will hire workers who may not be qualified.

“Retailers are caught in a bind,” said Paul Kozlowski, an economics professor at the University of Toledo. “They need good workers, but they can’t afford to raise their wages, and the number of applicants is very small with this booming economy.”

But Kurt Barnard of Barnard’s Retail Consultants, a forecasting firm, said the tight market for full-time employees--reflected in Friday’s jobless report showing the nation’s unemployment rate at a 24-year low of 4.7%--doesn’t mean the pool of part-time workers is shrinking.

And although part-time job seekers can be choosier this season about where they apply, Barnard said, many are not attracted to retail work that requires long hours standing on their feet.

The result could be longer lines at counters and more crowds in stores, but “by and large, customers are not going to leave the stores because of longer lines,” Barnard said.

Over the last five years, retailers have increased their holiday staffs by an average of about 3.8%, according to the National Retail Federation, a trade group.

While worker shortages have been found through much of the Midwest and South, many retailers in areas with higher unemployment are still getting an influx of inquiries from prospective employees.

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Associated Press was used in compiling this report.