THIS TIME of year, hundreds of thousands of seasonal retail workers across North America and Europe would usually be wrapping gifts, stirring hot chocolates, tidying Christmas displays or assisting the flurry of last-minute shoppers.

But the balance of available holiday jobs this year has radically shifted from storefront to warehouse and delivery amid record purchases online. And with millions of retail workers in the United States and Europe already laid-off, competition for what remaining jobs are left is fierce, economists say.

The supply of available holiday jobs in US customer-facing retail fell by a third to 302,100 this year from around 466,400 jobs last November, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics gathered by consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed.

Macy’s, Inc. cut seasonal hires to 25,000 this year from 80,000 in 2019. JC Penney Company, Inc. narrowly rescued from bankruptcy in early November, is hiring just 1,700 people in contrast to 37,000 last year. For a graphic, click here ‘Tis the season: Fewer retail jobs up for grabs.

Meanwhile, applications for US storefront retail positions have jumped by around 34% year-on-year, according to November data from jobs site Glassdoor.

Kayla Frederick, 31, was laid off from her position as leasing assistant for a tour bus company in Florence, Alabama in April as venues closed and tours were canceled because of the pandemic. In November, she started her first ever seasonal job in a local clothing boutique’s warehouse, pulling online orders, folding inventory and tagging intake items.

“I never expected to be laid off this long,” Ms. Frederick said. “I’m thankful this gave me a job.”

In Europe, data from jobs sites like Indeed, Adzuna, Student Jobs and CV Library paints a similar picture of lower vacancies and rising applications. The number of available seasonal jobs in the UK was down by a third year-on-year in November to 13,600, according to Adzuna data.

CV Library reported a 60% drop in the number of customer-facing retail jobs listed in the UK compared to last year — but clicks per job have doubled. In Germany and the UK, sales associates at jobs site Student Jobs reported increased contact from frustrated students not hearing back from companies inundated in applications.

Data from Indeed in the UK showed a jump of around a third in clicks per posting on seasonal jobs this year compared to last, according to a report by Indeed’s UK in-house economist Jack Kennedy.

“Jobseekers may be looking at Christmas jobs as a potential temporary lifeline as job losses mount,” Mr. Kennedy wrote.

‘NEW WORLD OF RETAIL’
UK postal service Royal Mail increased its seasonal hires to 33,000 this year from 20,000 in 2019, while FedEx Corp in the U.S. hired a quarter more seasonal workers, taking total hires to 70,000 from 55,000, labour statistics bureau data showed.

“This is likely a window into the new world of retail,” Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, said. “What was done out of necessity during a pandemic is likely to become an annual online shopping tradition for future holidays.”

Glassdoor saw a 120% year-on-year increase in applications for e-commerce roles like delivery drivers, warehouse workers and order pickers in the United States and a 45% jump in the UK.

Oscar Jiminez, a twenty-two year old college senior in Southern California, is among the lucky ones. He landed seasonal employment in October in a gig he believed would have him working as a customer service agent on an “essential” retailers’ sales floor. But he found himself in a warehouse at the back of the store instead.

“This wasn’t exactly in my job description.” Mr. Jiminez said. “So far I’ve been picking orders, going around the store, finding things people purchased online and getting them ready for curbside pickup, ship-to-home… I’m constantly on the move.”

Some supermarkets are also pushing up hiring. In the UK, British supermarket Tesco posted 2,000 more seasonal vacancies than last year. It posted its seasonal vacancies on student jobs site E4S a month later than usual because of lockdown uncertainty, but still received over twice as many applications, according to website data.

German supermarket giant Lidl took on 2,400 apprentices this year in Germany, 40% higher than last year’s intake. Lidl and Amazon.com, Inc. were already boosting their staff by a significant amount throughout the year to deal with the surge in demand, reducing the need for temporary seasonal hires, the companies said.

Amazon hired just 100,000 seasonal staff this year in the United States, half last year’s total of 200,000, because it had already boosted operational hires by 275,000 throughout the year, it said in September.

Lidl took an opportunistic approach to finding candidates this season in Germany, where a partial lockdown is likely to be toughened in coming days. “Bar work is so yesterday,” read a November 30 recruitment ad. “Look forward to a secure job for €12.50 an hour — switch industries and get into retail.”

Lidl pulled the ad within a day after backlash from the gastronomy sector on social media, it told Reuters, apologizing for the distress the message caused. It declined to say how many new positions it had on offer. — Reuters

By Maya M. Padillo, Correspondent
and Marifi S. Jara, Mindanao Bureau Chief

IN the imagined post-pandemic Philippines, there would be no shortage of affordable food and Filipino farmers and fisherfolk would not be poor.

“Our goal is a country that is food-secure and resilient, where farmers and fisherfolk are empowered and enjoy better incomes and a higher standard of living,” Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar said during the Sept. 9 virtual launch of the World Bank report Transforming Philippine Agriculture: During COVID-19 and Beyond.

Not that the dream suddenly cropped up during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis.

Mr. Dar, when he assumed office in August 2019, launched what he branded as “new thinking” for the agriculture sector, a nine-point agenda which signaled a policy adjustment that looks beyond the staple and politically-charged commodity, rice.

That new thinking and its goals have been made more urgent by the disruptions stemming from the pandemic, bringing to the fore the industry’s inherent strength as a source of essential goods as well as its many weaknesses.

“The gaps within the commodity value chains must be addressed in order for (agriculture) to be efficient and an effective catalyst for inclusive growth,” Antonio S. Peralta, chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines-Southern Mindanao Business Council, said in an e-mail interview.

 On the supply side, agricultural output grew at a rate of 1.6% and 1.2% in the second and third quarters, respectively, bucking the downward trend in other sectors and the economy’s overall economic performance.

In the southern islands of Mindanao, where about 43% of the country’s food output and more than 30% of agricultural exports come from, the sector also stayed positive at 0.1% in the second quarter while the industry and services sectors contracted 6.9% and 9.7%.

 “Agriculture grew point one percent, very small and minimal perhaps, yet, we can consider that agriculture is a tiny spark in the light of this otherwise dark reality that we face because of the pandemic,” Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) Deputy Executive Director Romeo M. Montenegro said in an online briefing in early September.

MAKING CHAINS
But while supply proved buoyant, pain points in marketing and distribution became pronounced even after the national policy on the unhampered movement of food products across local borders was made abundantly clear.

Remedy came from various quarters — national and local government agencies, big business, social enterprises, and individual entrepreneurs — but the form it took followed a consistent theme: setting up relatively small chains directly linking farmers to buyers. 

The Department of Agriculture (DA) launched its Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita, which came on wheels and came in pop-up shop format. Farmers were given venues to sell their harvest, such as in barangay sports centers, open spaces in major shopping malls, and even gas stations owned by San Miguel Corp.’s (SMC) unit Petron Corp.

MinDA also restaged and expanded its Tienda program, bringing Mindanao goods to the cities of Manila and Baguio, and at the same time, facilitating regular supply deals.

Well-established farmer cooperatives also ventured online to find new markets.

A unique organization, Rural Rising Philippines (RURI), also found impetus from the crisis, with Baguio-based couple Andie and Ace Estrada starting it as a simple drive to help Cordillera farmers and retailers who found themselves giving away or throwing out vegetables for lack of buyers.

Their stopgap initiative attracted conglomerate SMC, which provided them with an unused property along Maayusin Street in UP Village, Quezon City. What initially served as a much-needed warehouse has now been spruced up into the RuRi House, a hub for a growing community of farmers from various parts of Luzon, organic packaging makers, resellers, and consumers.

“It’s the power of the collective,” Mr. Estrada said during the Nov. 19 episode of the ongoing webinar series hosted by the Climate Change Commission and House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Loren B. Legarda.

When asked by Ms. Legarda what government can do or provide to help them as they continue to expand the RuRi movement, Ms. Estrada, in earnest, gave a full menu: “Greenhouse farming, storage, logistics, and food processing.”

Rural Rising PH’s wishlist echoes recommendations continually being lobbied for by agriculture stakeholders across the country, especially in Mindanao.

“This is really the best time to rethink, reimagine, repurpose, or invest in the agricultural sector,” Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry Area Vice-President for Mindanao Ma. Teresa R. Alegrio said.

She made the proposals in a resolution sent to the economic managers as part of this year’s Mindanao Business Conference output. The chamber emphasized the need not just for funding commitment from government, but technological and logistical support to move the industry a step up the global value chain through agro-processing.

“Agriculture is the low-hanging fruit” now for development and investment, Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry President John Carlo B. Tria said, noting possibilities in high-value crops such as cacao and coffee and, literally, fruit.

“The pandemic gives us an opening to really look… to give opportunities to our farm sector so that we are not simply going to be dependent on one way of doing business,” he said.

Felicitas B. Pantoja, co-founder and president of social enterprise Coffee for Peace, in an email interview said there is much room for growth within the Philippine market itself.

“We heavily rely on imported coffee for our drinks… This time (of the pandemic) should give our farmers the stage to shine and be proud of our local product,” she said.

“Our farmers are as important as our (health) frontliners,” added Ms. Pantoja, who is one of the three recipients of the 2020 Oslo Business for Peace Award, which has been likened to a Nobel Prize for business.

Ms. Pantoja said the award, while honoring her work as an individual entrepreneur, also gives recognition to Coffee for Peace as an example of a sustainable business “that can contribute to our society by making the farmers rich.”

But more than the monetary gain, she said it is about elevating them from being just suppliers in the agricultural chain and helping them become “confident as farmers.”

SYDNEY/JERUSALEM/MONTREAL — From Air Canada to China’s CDB Aviation, airlines and leasing firms are rushing to permanently convert older passenger jets into freighters, betting on a boom in e-commerce as the value of used planes tumbles amid the pandemic.

That has created a huge opportunity for passenger-to-freighter (P2F) conversion companies, including Singapore Technologies (ST) Engineering Ltd, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), and US-based Aeronautical Engineers, Inc.

Aviation analytics firm Cirium expects the number of P2F conversions globally will rise by 36% to 90 planes in 2021, and to 109 planes in 2022.

“We estimate that most slots are sold for 2021 and at least 40% for 2022,” Cirium Head of Market Analysis Chris Seymour said. “There is an increase in newer-generation programs, notably the 737-800 and A321, as well as the A330, although older types like the 767 continue to see strong demand, driven in the past few years by Amazon building their own fleet.”

The market value of 15-year-old planes has fallen by 20% to 47% since the start of the year depending on the model, according to advisory firm Ishka, which makes freighter conversions more attractive.

Air Canada is looking to convert several of its Boeing Co 767s, Russia’s S7 Group is acquiring its first 737-800 converted freighters from lessor GECAS, and lessor CDB Aviation has ordered two Airbus SE A330 conversions from ST Engineering’s EFW joint venture with Airbus.

The P2F conversions are a step beyond the cheaper temporary conversions many airlines have implemented during the pandemic, which remove passenger seats to carry more cargo.

Permanent conversions are a financial bet that air freight demand, which was weak before COVID-19, will remain strong for years to come as shoppers turn to e-commerce. The airline industry estimates it will take until 2024 for passenger traffic to recover to 2019 levels.

Freight markets are notoriously volatile, however, and have been beset by extended downturns; shortage can quickly turn into overcapacity, analysts warn.

Normally, about half of the world’s cargo is carried in the bellies of passenger planes, but the hit to demand has left the world more reliant on dedicated freighters.

“2020 has seen record high freighter aircraft utilisation, and our view is that the pandemic has accelerated the long-term structural shift towards increased e-commerce demand,” said CDB Aviation chief executive Patrick Hannigan.

Boeing said cargo yields had risen by 40% through September because of the pandemic-related passenger disruptions, and it forecasts more than 60% of freighter deliveries over the next 20 years will be conversions rather than new widebody freighters like the 777. Narrowbody freighters are almost all conversions.

The conversion boom is also helping aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul groups offset some of the lost business from the decline in passenger flights.

Such conversions generally cost millions of dollars on top of the cost of the aircraft and take three to four months, said ST Engineering Aerospace president Jeffrey Lam said.

His company is ramping up capacity, with plans to convert at least 18 A321 planes next year, rising to around 25-30 annually in the future, up from single digits this year.

“We are all booked out for 2021 for aircraft conversions,” Lam said. “The first slots are well into 2022.”

ST Engineering also may add converted freighters to its leasing business, which has focused on passenger planes, he said.

IAI can convert 18 or more 767s a year and produces most of those used by Amazon.com, Inc.

“We are investing a lot of effort to meet the market demand,” said Yosef Melamed, general manager of IAI’s aviation group, which is also working on the first-ever P2F conversion of the larger 777-300ER as part of a 15-plane contract with GECAS.

“What happened with the coronavirus outbreak, commercial flights were significantly reduced… international flights dropped to nearly zero,” he said. “So, the only solution for transporting cargo, and with the trend that people are staying at home ordering online, is cargo planes.”

US-based Aeronautical Engineers is also seeing a dramatic increase in demand for conversions, said Robert Convey, its senior vice president for sales and marketing, citing a 30-40% fall in the value of planes.

“We’re seeing younger and younger aircraft being converted due to the large number of passenger aircraft that have been grounded and are not likely to return to service in the near future,” he said.

Grant Stevens, vice president of corporate services at Canada’s KF Aerospace, said increased demand for P2F conversions, which grew from about 10% of its business before the pandemic to about half today, has helped offset a decline in requests for aircraft maintenance.

“We have been able to employ most of our staff by doing conversions,” he said. — Reuters