Economy makes holiday job a special gift

UPS

'I don't see myself doing anything else,' Andrew Sullivan said about his job at UPS.

By Eve Tahmincioglu

In 2008, Andrew Sullivan lost his job as a sales and customer service supervisor for a telecommunications company and decided to take a temporary seasonal gig as a driver for UPS because he couldn?t find work in his field.

Sullivan, 34, eventually landed a full-time job with UPS and is now a road supervisor for the company, training other seasonal drivers that will hit the road later this week.

?It was something I never considered or thought of,? he explained. ?Honestly, I took the job thinking, if anything, I could get out two months, earn money and then continue to find something. I didn?t expect to have this as my career.?

This holiday season thousands of seasonal workers will be taking on temporary work. Some will use their experience as fodder for their resumes; others will just be happy to get a few paychecks and go back on the job market after the holidays.

And then there are those like Sullivan, who could end up in new careers if they?re lucky enough to turn their temporary gigs into full-time positions with benefits.

An increasing number of job seekers who were once office dwellers are looking to land these holiday jobs -- everything from warehouse worker to retail clerk. Many of these jobs were once thought to be less than desirable, perhaps because they seem to have little future, offer no benefits, pay low wages or and feature tough holiday work conditions. But now these positions are attracting greater interest.

?Retailers are seeing more qualified professionals who are interested in these temporary, lower-end jobs,? said Casey Chroust, executive vice president of retail operations for the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA).

Chroust adds that there has been an uptick in applications this year: ?It?s a frank reflection of the state of the economy.?

While many companies have already hired the bulk of their seasonal staff, there are still jobs available.

?We see companies bringing folks on board up until early December,? said Todd Bevol, president and CEO of Integrity Staffing Solutions, adding that some retailers need workers even after the holidays to handle returns.

UPS expects to hire about 55,000 seasonal workers this year, up from 50,000 in 2010, and the company is still in a hiring mode.

SimplyHired.com still has about 90,000 holiday and retail job listings, said Dion Lim, the job search website?s president. Average pay for seasonal store clerks, he said, is $8 to $10 an hour and $15 to $20 for temporary store managers.

?Wage improvement in the United States has been pretty stagnant in last couple of years,? he pointed out. ?A lot of people will be happy to have a job.?

If workers are asked to work on Thanksgiving or Christmas, many employers pay?time and a half, said the RILA?s Chroust, but it depends on each company?s policy.

Many retailers have been gradually extending holiday store hours, with some opening at midnight Thanksgiving, or even earlier this year.

One large employer that has come under fire recently for this practice is Target, which announced recently it intends to open its stores nationally at midnight on Thanksgiving Day. Employees have protested the move because it would eat into their turkey time, but the retailer maintained it?s a business decision.

?Black Friday is one of the busiest and most competitive shopping days of the year,? said company spokeswoman Molly Snyder. ?We have heard from our guests that they want to shop Target following their Thanksgiving celebrations rather than only having the option of getting up in the middle of the night. By opening at midnight, we are making it easier than ever to deliver on our guests? wants and needs.?

Workers who clock in on Thanksgiving Day will be paid time and half, she said.

In addition to working long and unusual hours, employees who end up in retail stores often face grueling conditions during the holidays because that?s when most retailers make their biggest profits of the year.

Several years ago, a seasonal worker at Walmart was crushed to death by bargain-hungry Black Friday shoppers; and this year the Occupational Safety & Health Administration has posted a crowd control fact sheet on its website warning store owners to keep an eye on worker and shopper safety during the holiday season.

Seasonal jobs can be physically demanding, especially those in warehouses and distribution centers, stressed Jon Gelman, a New York attorney who has represented injured seasonal employees.

?They?re clueless out there,? he said?of seasonal workers who are often asked to ?operate machinery, forklifts and scanning equipment, and are pushing and shoving boxes. They?re going to have accidents.?

Unfortunately, most temp workers don?t have medical benefits, he said, and their workers compensation claims will be limited monetarily because wages are so low.

To bypass some of the holiday work agony, Rob McGovern, CEO of Jobfox and founder of CareerBuilder, suggests that job seekers who haven?t landed a seasonal job go after employment at high-end retailers instead of the standard chain department stores because the pay and conditions tend to be better.

?Companies that are servicing the 1 percent,? he explained, are doing well financially and may have jobs available. He pointed out that while Walmart missed its earnings forecast recently, Tiffany & Co. announced higher-than-expected earnings in its last quarterly report.

?A job at Tiffany?s is more lucrative than a Walmart greeter,? he noted.

Indeed, according to Glassdoor.com, an hourly sales associate at Tiffany?s takes home about $15 an hour, while the same job at Walmart pays $8.82 an hour.

No matter where you end up, the biggest benefit for many is when a seasonal position leads to a full-time job, just like what happened for Andrew Sullivan at UPS. He says he?s glad he responded to a holiday job listing on Monster.com nearly three years ago.

?I don?t see myself doing anything else,? Sullivan said about his job at UPS.

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Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/18/8881030-tough-economy-makes-holiday-job-a-special-gift-for-many

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