Dive Brief:
- Seasonal job postings on Indeed were down 8.2% year over year entering the month of October, but still remained more than 5% above pre-pandemic levels, an analyst with the company’s Hiring Lab said Thursday.
- Employers were also showing less urgency to fill seasonal positions, Indeed said, with about 6% of seasonal job postings including keywords that expressed urgency, such as “hiring urgently,” “urgent hire” or “immediate start,” compared to 10% of posts last year. Meanwhile, candidate demand for seasonal work has increased; searches for seasonal jobs on Indeed were up 33% from the same period in 2021.
- Seasonal hiring for the holiday season typically picks up in early September and peaks in November, Indeed said, but the company noted that such jobs may be posted weeks in advance of the usual trend. But the aforementioned signs, along with a decline in the number of postings offering hiring incentives, “suggests softening employer demand and reduced intensity in the hunt for seasonal workers,” Indeed said.
Dive Insight:
Though seasonal worker demand may be waning by some measures, recruiting is still a top concern for employers as 2022 comes to a close.
Last month’s survey of senior executives by software platform Multimedia Plus found that 65% said recruiting was their biggest challenge for staffing up ahead of the holiday season. A number of big name employers have already begun to publicize their hiring efforts this month. The list includes Kroger, which announced a campaign to fill thousands of roles across a multitude of business segments, and large retailers such as Walmart, Target and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Indeed’s observations about candidate interest have been identified elsewhere. The company’s Indeed Flex division previously found that roughly 1 in 8 U.S. adults were proactively looking for seasonal work this year, citing the pressure of inflation as a primary motivator. An earlier survey by staffing app Bluecrew found that half of U.S. professionals said they were seeking additional work on a seasonal basis.
Seasonal worker respondents to a September Snagajob survey cited interest in a wide range of benefits offerings, such as weekly payouts, flexible scheduling, sign-on bonuses and the potential for a more permanent hire status, among others.
As employers weigh their hiring needs for the holidays, labor market economists have cautioned about the possibility of a slowdown in the coming months, particularly if the U.S. economy enters a recession.
