1-800-Flowers.com Aims To Hire 10,000 Workers Ahead Of Holiday Shopping Season

1-800-Flowers.com Inc FLWS is ratcheting up its hiring ahead of the year-end holiday season with a plan to recruit more than 10,000 workers in seasonal positions across its gourmet foods and gifting brands.

What Happened: The company — whose brands include Harry & David, PersonalizationMall.com, Cheryl's Cookies and The Popcorn Factory, along with its eponymous floral operations — is seeking to fill full-and part-time opportunities in high-volume areas encompassing production, gift assembly, distribution and operational support. The majority of seasonal roles are being offered in Illinois, Ohio and Oregon, and some work-from-home positions will also be available.

Steve Lightman, group president for gourmet foods and gift baskets at 1-800-Flowers.com, stressed that the positions are competitive with other seasonal jobs being offered.

“Our seasonal team members benefit from competitive wages, flexible schedules, product giveaways, raffles, a generous employee discount applicable across our family of brands, and more,” he said. “With a robust incentive program and our commitment to fostering a diverse, inclusive workplace, we're providing a welcoming, safe, and fun environment where all our team members feel respected, valued, and empowered.”

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Why It Happened: With the year-end holiday season only a few months away, expectations are strong that this will be a banner period for retailers.

“Consumer spending is currently far above pre-pandemic levels thanks to unprecedented monetary and fiscal policies that have backstopped demand by putting money into wallets for nearly a year and a half,” wrote Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist with the National Retail Federation, in his monthly economic report.

Kleinhenz observed that “U.S. consumers remain in the mood to spend,” but retailers are scrambling to ensure they have the workforce to meet the year-end shopping demand — although this rush for a solution could trigger new problems.

“Businesses across the economy are reporting that it is difficult to find the workers they need and have responded by raising pay, which raises concerns about inflationary pressures starting to build,” he wrote. “Trends in wages and salaries are critical for the economic outlook as policymakers debate whether the recent spike in inflation will be temporary or longer lasting. The bulk of the recent upturn in U.S. inflation has been driven primarily by supply chain bottlenecks and low levels of inventories, but higher labor costs are often passed on to consumers and are considered a precursor of broader inflation.”

Other major retailers are also seeking to ensure a solid workforce before the holiday shoppers make out their gift lists. Last month, Walmart Inc WMT announced it was offering its warehouse workers either weekly bonuses or temporary pay raises ahead of the year-end holiday shopping season while CVS Health Corp CVS said it was raising its minimum wage from $11 to $15 an hour and dropping educational requirements for employment.

Photo: 1-800-Flowers.com