DENVER (KDVR) — If you’re among the many who are currently looking for work, big retailers and other companies in Colorado are starting to hire for the upcoming holiday season.
Unlike past seasons, you better bet hiring holiday helpers is going to look a lot different this year during the pandemic.
“There are 27,000 jobs available in Denver alone that are urgently hiring,” said Mathieu Stevenson, CEO of Snagajob.
According to Snagajob.com, the nation’s largest marketplace for hourly work, there are three distinct things you should know about:
- There are some delays in hiring (depending on the company/industry).
- Colorado has a very tight labor market right now.
- Jobs have recovered in our state, but in very different industries.
“What you’re seeing is all of the jobs that would typically hire for the holiday season are moving from inside the store to sort of the E-commerce fulfillment side of things,” said Stevenson.
For example, in Denver we have industries such as retail and restaurants who traditionally hire for the holidays. But according to Stevenson, most are still down 28%.
“But then you’ve got jobs in grocery, healthcare, warehousing and on-demand delivery like ‘DoorDash’ – those are up almost, in the case of warehousing, almost up 95%,” Stevenson explained.
In the Denver area, Target alone plans to hire 2,500 seasonal employees to help with contactless service.
Nationwide, Walmart plans to hire 20,000 people to work in its E-commerce fulfillment centers.
In Colorado’s High Country, with the Federal VISA suspension in place through the rest of 2020, ski resorts aren’t able to hire foreign workers like in years past.
This year, they’re relying more on hiring locals.
“We’ve had a lot of interest among college students who are either taking a gap year or have a little more flexibility in their schedule because of remote learning. So we’re seeing them apply in greater numbers than in years past,” said Ryan Huff, Communications Director for Vail Resorts.