State and National Holiday Hiring Trends

According to Snagajob, 100 percent of surveyed employers plan to offer seasonal workers hourly pay above the national minimum wage in Colorado

Peter Harrison //December 20, 2017//

State and National Holiday Hiring Trends

According to Snagajob, 100 percent of surveyed employers plan to offer seasonal workers hourly pay above the national minimum wage in Colorado

Peter Harrison //December 20, 2017//

Snagajob, a national marketplace for hourly work, recently released its 10th annual Holiday Hiring Survey, revealing employers are taking new steps to accommodate today’s tight labor market, with an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent — the lowest in more than a decade. 

According to the findings, 77 percent of employers will face challenges hiring seasonal workers this year, taking 14 percent longer to secure seasonal staff than it did in 2016. As a result, employers are finding new ways to bridge the gap:

  • 35 percent plan to offer current employees more hours to cover open shifts
  • a third of hiring managers began recruiting for seasonal positions as early as September
  • More than a quarter (28 percent) are offering health insurance benefits to seasonal employees.

“In order to attract and retain top talent, employers need to give workers want they want most –hours, schedule flexibility and stability,” says Snagajob CEO Peter Harrison. “With most hourly job seekers able to secure a job in less than a week, it’s clearly a job seeker’s market, and employers must pay close attention to this group’s preferences if they want to staff up adequately for the holidays.”

Locally, about 80 percent of employers plan to offer workers more than 20 hours a week over the holidays, a 10 percent jump above the national average. The average number of hours planned to be offered to seasonal employees comes to 33. Also in Colorado, 100 percent of surveyed employers plan to offer seasonal workers hourly pay above the national minimum wage. Employers pay seasonal workers an average of $12.10 an hour in the state.

Nationally, one in three job seekers are hired after submitting only one application; thus hiring managers are getting creative:

  • 51 percent of this year’s seasonal hires will be rehires from last season
  • A majority of employers (93 percent) plan to retain seasonal workers after the holidays
  • 91 percent of hiring managers across all industries report they will pay seasonal employees more than the federal minimum wage this year

Additional findings from Snagajob’s holiday hiring and State of the Hourly Worker surveys include:

●      The majority of employers (89 percent) planned to fill seasonal positions by November. Only 43 percent expected to have positions filled by October, down from 55 percent last year.

●      In response to workers’ demand for more hours, employers offering more than 20 hours a week, increased almost 5 percent year-over-year.

●      75 percent of hourly workers use mobile devices to search and apply for positions, up from 25 percent in 2012. This year, for the first time, job applications from mobile devices will exceed those from desktops and laptops.

●      Retailers will account for the majority of holiday hiring, including a fast growing range of fulfillment center jobs; Snagajob found that hourly workers are two times more likely to search for retail jobs than other industries.

For its holiday hiring report, Snagajob surveyed 1,000 employers from the nation’s retail, restaurant and hospitality industries.

Snagajob has more than 80 million registered hourly workers and 300,000 employer locations. The company focus on creating instant and quality connections so workers can get jobs and employers can hire workers in minutes.WIth  mobile sourcing, hiring, training, scheduling and performance management tools, Snagajob can drive results for single-location operators to Fortune 500 businesses with thousands of locations, across the restaurant, retail, hospitality and health-care industries.


Peter Harrison is the CEO of Snagajob.