The Last Mile:
Essential workers & a holiday
season unlike any other
As the world collectively counts down to the end of 2020, there’s still one season to get through: The holidays. For some, the holiday season is stressful under normal times, with family dynamics and finances stretched to the max. But this year is certain to be a strange one, with the COVID-19 pandemic changing how Americans shop, as well as how they gather with family.
In this month’s infographic, we’ll be focusing on “the last mile” – the workforce that goes right up to your front door and has kept the country running throughout the pandemic: warehouse & logistics professionals and “gig economy” delivery drivers. We’ll see who is looking for work, who is hiring, and what trends are emerging, all through our robust Talroo Insights data.
Holiday shopping by the numbers
As our need to socially distance remains as important as ever, retail is seeing a mass adoption of e-commerce, with more to be expected over the holiday season.
Americans spent more than $730 billion on holiday shopping in 2019. Roughly $168 billion, or 23%, was spent online.
E-commerce holiday retail sales are expected to grow between 25% to 35% from November through January.
A 1%-1.5% rise is expected in overall retail sales this year.
*Sources: CNBC, Deloitte
Holiday Hiring
by the Numbers
The shift from brick-and-mortar shopping to e-commerce means that companies are pivoting – relying less on salespeople in stores, and more on warehouse and delivery professionals to get items to people’s doorsteps.
Number of seasonal hires UPS needs to make
Starting wage of Walmart’s seasonal workers: $15.75 to $23.75 an hour.
29% of retailers are offering incentives to new hires such as bonuses, premium pay, and increased employee discounts.
*Sources: Korn Ferry Client Survey,
InvestorPlace, CNBC
Companies Hiring
Seasonal Workers
Talroo Insights
Industry Data
Throughout the COVID crisis, we’ve brought you some broad national and state trends based on our Insights data. In this month’s infographic, we take a look into the industries that will be supporting the holiday season.
Warehouse & Logistics
11% MoM increase in job searches from August to September
States with the Most Job Postings: NJ, PA, and NY (all have doubled from August to September)
Most Searched Cities
Houston
Atlanta
Chicago
Dallas
Las Vegas
Warehouse & logistics job searches by month
After reaching a low point in May, warehouse & logistics job search queries have picked up, and are now higher than they've been in the past six months.
The Gig Economy Gets
into E-commerce
The companies that delivered our food during the height of quarantine are expanding into delivering other essential items as well: pet supplies, convenience items, and even goods from local businesses.
“We think there’s a huge market—anything that you want from your local business or your local market, sent to your home inside of 30 minutes.”
-Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO
1.2 Billion
- Revenue generated by Uber Eats in Q2 of 2020.
*** Source: Fortune
Top Gig
Companies Hiring
Gig job searches
by month
Similar to warehouse & logistics searches, gig searches have steadily increased since May, and are likely to continue to do so throughout the rest of 2021.
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Visit our previous infographics at talroo.com/resources
*** Source: Talroo’s Insights business intelligence tool sifted through 6 billion points of data including job postings and job seeker activity from March - October 2020. Insights also provides major and minor job classification data as well as geographic data from the national level to cities and zip codes.