Ready or not, the holidays are nearly here. With seasonal temp jobs expected to be at a five-year high, people with disabilities may have more employment opportunities.
Not very long after Christina Applegate finished a Saturday Night Live opening monologue which let us all embrace the last few days before holiday-fever grips the nation, retailers across the country broke the serenity and began releasing their seasonal temp worker hiring plans. The figures, however, could mean a very happy holiday season for many American families, including people with disabilities.
CNN Money writer Julianne Pepitone wrote on Tuesday that a total of 413,700 holiday temp jobs have been posted so far. This five-year high in seasonal hiring is in anticipation of a $586 billion shopping spree by U.S. consumers, which is a 4.1% increase over 2011 according to the National Retail Federation.
Macy’s (which also owns the Bloomingdale’s line of stores) led the way with a plan to add 80,000 jobs between now and the end of the year. These temp employees will be placed in retail environments serving customers and supporting store operations as well as doing behind-the-scenes work in call centers and shipping warehouses.
Amazon.com, meanwhile, plans to add 50,000 jobs between now and the end of year, and expects “thousands” of seasonal hires to be retained as full-time employees. The online retailer has 40 distribution centers located across the United States, and the types of jobs described by Pepitone include tasks that should sound very familiar to individuals with disabilities who have experience in contract service organizations:
… [W]orkers at the fulfillment centers typically perform a range of tasks involved in online orders: Pulling items from warehouse shelves, packing up boxes for shipment and storing incoming merchandise.
Pepitone’s article links to another article from CNN Money contributor Anne Fisher. She talks with Jason Hamilton, a vice president for the online job search site, Snagajob.com, which, in conjunction with IPSOS Public Affairs, conducts annual polls of hiring managers about seasonal employment. Hamilton tells Fisher the 2012 results are the most optimistic since they began the research study five years ago:
About half of seasonal workers (49%) are expected to be full-time hires… Moreover, it seems many expect consumers’ shopping spree to continue when the holidays are over. ‘Hiring managers in the survey said that fully half of their holiday hires will be able to stay on in permanent jobs after the New Year,’ Hamilton notes. That’s a big jump from the past few years, when only 15 to 20% of holiday jobs turned permanent.
People with disabilities undergo career training in every type of job being made available this holiday season.Use the comments section to share any links you find about seasonal hiring here in Massachusetts.
Image by Ken Kennedy.