'Employers looking to hire for the holidays still face a difficult hiring environment'
Seasonal job postings have climbed back higher than 2019 levels, according to a report from online job board Indeed.
As of Oct. 22, Canadian holiday job postings were up five per cent from their levels during the same time in 2019.
“With in-store shopping returning, seasonal demand has rebounded to more normal levels this year, led by a solid bounce-back in customer-facing positions like customer service representative, cashier, and photographer, to document the festivities,” says Brendon Bernard, senior economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab.
“The holiday hiring season also started a few weeks earlier this year than in 2019, with seasonal postings starting their rise in mid-August rather than early September as some employers looked to get a head start on the search for workers.”
On a scale of zero to 400, this year’s numbers stand at about 350, up from just over 300 from two years ago. In 2020, the numbers were just over 200, according to Indeed’s report based on a tally of job postings that include in their job titles terms like “Christmas,” “xmas,” “santa,” “holiday,” “seasonal,” “advent,” as well as their French equivalents.
Job searches still lower
However, Canadian job searches on Indeed containing seasonal terms have not been able to bounce back to 2019 levels even though it showed slight improvement from a year ago, according to the report.
As of Oct. 22, job seeker interest in seasonal work stands at 0.13 per cent of all Canadian searches, up from 0.11 per cent in 2020 but still down from 0.17 per cent in 2019.
“Should these conditions persist, some seasonal employers struggling to fill roles may have to adjust their hiring strategies, particularly their compensation plans, to find workers for the holidays,” says Bernard.
In the past few months, Amazon, IBM, PwC, Microsoft, Lowe’s Canada and HCL Technologies announced major hiring programs.
