Warehouse workers have never been in such high demand before, especially since the paradigm shift in consumer shopping behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Panic buying, coupled with the forced shift to an online mode of living, prompted everyone from mom-and-pop shops to established brick and mortar retailers to scramble toward electronic storefronts.

To meet the skyrocketing demand in online retail, the likes of Amazon, Target, and several other major retailers announced their decisions to hire hundreds of thousands seasonal workers. Smaller companies, too, opened new warehouses and hired seasonal workers in large volumes.

In partnership with Joveo and Talent.com, Wonolo, a leading online platform disrupting the temporary staffing industry, recently published a whitepaper titled “Competition for Warehouse Workers is Fierce,” which throws light on the rising demand for warehouse workers through the course of 2020.

For this study, Joveo analyzed data from a large number of leading retailers and ecommerce companies, recruitment ad agencies, and staffing agencies that power their jobs through our advanced programmatic job advertising platform.

Key findings from our analysis include:

  1. The cost to acquire candidates for warehouse jobs rose 383% (year-over-year) in November, indicating record demand.
  2. The Cost per Applicant (CPA) for warehouse jobs in November was up more than 366% since June, when statewide lockdowns from COVID-19 began to ease.
  3. The CPA soared nearly six-fold in November compared to February, when the outbreak started gaining momentum in the US.

In a recent episode of Talent Talks, Monica Plaza (VP, Strategy, Wonolo) and Robert Boersma (VP, Operations – North America, Talent.com) joined me to discuss the most interesting insights published in the whitepaper.

They spoke about some of the leading drivers of the increasing cost and complexity of recruiting warehouse workers, which include the ongoing surge in online shopping by consumers and the reduced desire of unemployed job seekers to get back to work due to safety concerns.

For more such insights on hiring warehouse workers, download the whitepaper today!