British Columbia Retailers Offer Incentives To Attract Seasonal Help – Just Be Prepared To Work ‘At The Back Of The House’

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Fashion retailer Aritzia is offering incentives to hire more than 400 seasonal employees from across Metro Vancouver for the upcoming holiday season.

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But applicants hoping to sell clothes in its stylish boutiques will be out of luck; Most positions will involve stacking, sorting and storing in a warehouse. It reflects what other companies are doing as well, as COVID-19 has caused more shoppers than ever to shop online rather than in stores, Vancouver-based retail analyst David Ian Gray said.

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The trend “was happening anyway, but then it skyrocketed through the pandemic,” Gray said. “The speed at which it has changed has been spectacular.”

Additional staff will still be required to handle the holiday season in retail stores, but there is a more urgent need for warehouse and logistics staff. These are employees dedicated to taking online orders, storing, stacking, and sorting inventory, as well as packing and shipping boxes to land in stores for pickup or at customer doors at home.

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The focus on retail had been on creating “the shopper experience,” bringing together in-store and online offerings, Gray said. Now, “there has been a real shift to the ‘back of the house,’ the things you don’t see: logistics, warehousing, inventory management and the supply chain.”

It’s not just about serving more online purchases, he said, but also managing global shipping disruptions. Instead of “just-in-time delivery” of products directly to retail stores, companies now accept larger orders and store them in distribution centers for a season rather than risk not being able to insure the product due to to a source market is under COVID lockdown.

Aritzia is offering $ 21 per hour for seasonal warehouse staff, plus discounts on their clothing and accessories, although the exact amount was not specified. He’s also trying to lure them in with perks like hot meals and using an on-site gym during peak hours during the holiday season.

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His salary of $ 21 is higher than Amazon’s offer of $ 17.90 an hour for seasonal warehouse workers “picker-packers” and “parcel sorters,” and $ 19.90 for warehouse employees. in Vancouver, according to listings on Indeed.com, which included a notice of $ 1,500 Signing Bonus for hires before a date in late October.

Basically, Aritzia is paying a vacation premium of $ 3 per hour for seasonal warehouse workers, starting this week through the end of December.

The impact of the pandemic on Aritzia’s online sales has been dramatic. For example, while its net income for the 13 weeks ending March 1 fell 2.9 percent compared to the same period last year, online sales were up 88 percent, based on earnings for the quarter. May 2021 quarter of the company.

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Many other retailers in North America are also preparing to handle the online fever by offering higher wages, signing bonuses, and better tuition reimbursement packages to bolster staffing in their warehouses. They include Amazon, Walmart and Dollar Tree in the US, according to CNN Business.

CNN Business reported that 52 percent of retailers said they had “significant challenges” in hiring warehouse employees, according to an August survey of more than 80 large box, grocery, drug store and clothing chains conducted by the search firm. Korn Ferry. For comparison, the survey found that 33 percent of retailers said the same about hiring employees for staff stores.

The Wall Street daily reported that Walmart in the US was awarding retention bonuses and raises to warehouse workers of several dollars an hour during the holiday season through January. In September, Walmart in the US said it was aiming to hire 20,000 warehouse workers.

In Canada, brands like Canadian Tire and Loblaws Supermarket are in the midst of building large distribution centers, although these won’t be ready in the coming months for this holiday season, Gray said.

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