Holiday hiring surges as the nation continues to battle a labor shortage
'From hospitality to retail, the workforce shortage will have a tremendous effect on holiday hiring this season'
The U.S. labor shortage continues to stifle every sector of the U.S. economy, making it harder for companies to hire for the pivotal holiday season.
Even still, companies are hiring in droves in order to get ahead of the surge in shoppers over the next few months but filling positions hasn't been easy.
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Over the last two months, there were 19 million jobs posted and about 14. 3 million of them are still sitting vacant, according to a new report by PeopleReady, which specializes in on-demand labor and highly skilled workers.
In fact, the most in-demand jobs are taking at least a month to fill.
A man wearing a mask walks past a "now hiring" sign on Melrose Avenue amid the coronavirus pandemic on April 22, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images)
"From hospitality to retail, the workforce shortage will have a tremendous effect on holiday hiring this season," Chief Operating Officer of PeopleReady and PeopleScout Taryn Owen said. "Those jobs that have been easy to fill in prior years will see challenges this year."
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This poses a problem due to the fact that temporary and part-time workers are considered "vital during the holiday season."
As a result, "companies are increasingly turning to staffing firms to help ensure that they have the workers they need to meet consumer demand," Owen said.
Based on its analysis of millions of job postings across the U.S. over the last two months, PeopleReady found that retail associates, warehouse workers, servers and food service workers, hosts/hostesses as well as cleaners and housekeepers are the most in-demand jobs for the holiday season.
The report also indicated that major companies including Home Depot, Walmart, Amazon, CVS and Dollar General are among the top employers currently hiring.
AMAZON ANNOUNCES HIRING PUSH FOR 125K WORKERS NATIONWIDE AHEAD OF ITS ANNUAL CAREER DAY
To bolster this point, Amazon recently announced plans to hire 125,000 additional employees nationwide as the industry preps for another holiday season. Likewise, Walmart also announced it was hiring upwards of 150,000 U.S. store associates to help with the demand even as the labor shortage continues to grip the nation.
When broken down by state, California has had the most job postings in August and September followed by Texas, New York, Florida and Pennsylvania, according to the data.
However, in terms of cities, New York City has advertised the most jobs over the last two months followed by Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Austin, San Francisco, Dallas and Seattle.