Wes Lenon started looking for Christmas workers in October and, as of mid-November, he was still eight people short of his goal for Kay Bee Toys at Cottonwood Mall.
Utah's robust economy and its plethora of jobs are making it tough for employers to find full- and part-time workers during the busy holiday season. The state's unemployment rate was just 3.4 percent in October -- the same rate it has been for the previous four months."I think it's harder than last year," said Lenon, the toy store manager. "I just transferred from Boise, and it's pretty much the same way there."
Lenon planned to add 21 extra people to his regular staff for the holidays. "There's a lot of competition out there. We're in a mall. They're either going to the store they like better or pay that they like better."
He said he was pleased with the caliber of applicants, many of whom are high school students who enjoy selling toys, but he said he knows it is impractical to fill a schedule with young people, especially for daytime slots. "You need to have a mix, because there's not a lot of flexibility if you have nothing but kids," he said.
Kay Bee Toys offers all its sales associates, whether they are seasonal or not, a 20 percent discount on most toys and higher-than-usual pay during the holiday season. It uses in-store advertising and "help wanted" fliers -- stuffed in bags with purchases and distributed to apartment complexes and supermarkets -- to find workers.
Despite the challenges, Lenon was optimistic he would find the extra people he needs.
"I've got my eye on eight today that I'm trying to contact for interviews," Lenon said. "I think I'll have it covered."
Low unemployment makes the holiday season great for job-seekers. But it puts a real squeeze on employers who not only need more people to wait on customers, restock shelves and do other tasks, but also have to cover the absences of their permanent workers who have time off.
"Just about everybody who wants to work is already working, because we've had an abundance of job opportunities over the last several years, and people have gotten back into the labor force," said Ken Jensen, chief economist for the Utah Department of Workforce Services.
Also, not everyone is keen on retail trade work, because the hours and pay might be eclipsed by what is available elsewhere. "People may have found other kinds of jobs that are more to their liking," Jensen said.
Some firms are turning to temporary staffing companies to find Christmas help. But even the temporary companies are working hard to drum up qualified people to match particular jobs and are finding they, too, must pay higher wages.
Tim Brogan, spokesman for the American Staffing Association, which represents 1,600 temporary staffing firms nationwide, said 70 percent of the association's members indicated in a recent survey that they have increased wages more than 5 percent in the past six months. And 70 percent expect they will need to hike wages again in the coming six months, Brogan said.
The staffing industry also is getting creative in seeking out workers to replenish their employee pool, since many of their temporary employees end up getting hired permanently at the workplace to which they have been assigned.
"We've found we had to restraighten our entire recruiting program. In the past, we've typically targeted the unemployed workers or part-time workers," said John Diehl, director of marketing for SOS Staffing Services in Utah. "When you have such high employment in an area, a lot of the people who are unemployed are not necessarily the people who have skills that you're looking for. We've had to look at the market and attack it in a different way."
SOS Staffing, the largest such firm in the area, now recruits people through the Internet as well as newspaper ads and finds potential workers at career fairs it sponsors. Last spring, SOS's two-day career fair in Salt Lake City and Ogden drew 1,900 people in each city.
Other SOS employee-seeking strategies include paying current SOS workers between $20 and $40 for each new worker they bring in and offering end-of-assignment financial bonuses to ensure that employees stay at a particular temporary job until it is finished.
Mari Ann Smith, a wife and mom in Salt Lake County who hasn't worked outside the home in 11 years, applied for a job at Deseret Book at Valley Fair Mall this season and promptly got the job.
"It was the very first place I went, and they hired me right away. I chose it for my own personal lifestyle. I needed a job that wouldn't require me to work on Sunday," Smith said. "I'm on my fifth week. They actually hired about 20 people because they wanted us all to be trained prior to the holiday season hitting."
Smith, who works 33 to 35 hours per week, said she likes the job and the atmosphere in the store. She also appreciates the fact that her employers are so accommodating when it comes to which hours she will work -- especially since her daughter is on a swim team and Smith is quite active in her church.
"One thing that has really worked out for me is that they have been really good about working with my schedule," she said.