Holiday Hiring Trends: E-commerce Takes the Lead—Yet Again
Holiday Hiring Trends: E-commerce Takes the Lead—Yet Again
The most recent job openings report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics appeared to foreshadow a weak 2024 holiday hiring season. Similarly, ZipRecruiter data on nationwide online job postings pointed to a slow start. But more recent hiring data suggests that holiday season hiring is well underway and that employers may be successfully completing more hires per opening in a slacker market with higher labor supply.
Job seekers who struggled to find work earlier in the year can anticipate a large uptick in seasonal opportunities in several key sectors, especially transportation and storage. The shift from brick-and-mortar retail to e-commerce that was evident in the late 2010s shows no sign of slowing.
Sluggish Holiday Job Openings
According to the most recent JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) report for September, openings that month were the lowest in retail since 2011 and the lowest in transportation, warehousing, and utilities since 2017. On ZipRecruiter, postings for seasonal roles in retail and manufacturing held steady in September and October compared to 2023, while transportation and warehousing postings saw a 36% decrease.
Seasonal Job Gains
The October jobs report suggests that lower openings are not necessarily a harbinger of lower hiring. While September-to-October job gains were slightly lower in retail than in 2023, growth in logistics and couriers was stronger than usual.
Between September and October, the 2015–2019 pre-pandemic average increase in retail jobs was 146.7K, with 23.3K in warehousing and 12.6K in couriers and messengers. (That’s according to Jobs Report data that is not seasonally adjusted.) Last month, retail added 124.7K jobs—slightly lower than usual. Warehousing gained 24.0K jobs, in line with the average, while couriers saw a larger jump with 33.6K jobs added.
E-commerce Dominates
Despite fewer listings, employers are hiring at strong rates, suggesting they are getting more value from each posting due to a slacker labor market where employers are receiving around 30% more applications per posting, compared to 2023.
What This Means for Job Seekers
Seasonal opportunities remain abundant, especially in e-commerce-related sectors. Job seekers should focus on warehousing, logistics, and delivery roles for the best chances of securing work this holiday season. They should expect hiring processes to be more selective than in the last three years. That means they may need to browse job listings and apply for several opportunities daily, prepare higher-quality job application materials, and be more responsive to employers when they receive callbacks.
The Bottom Line
The 2024 holiday hiring season is solid overall, with a clear shift toward e-commerce. Fewer job postings are driving more hires, signaling a slacker labor market with more competition among job seekers, so the job search process may be trickier than in recent years. But the jobs are still there, many with attractive perks, schedule flexibility, on-the-job training, and opportunities to convert holiday jobs into longer-term career opportunities.
