With Black Friday (November 24) and the Christmas period approaching, we are entering peak trading, forcing companies to strengthen teams to accommodate the extra consumption. According to HR companies, there is more attention to temporary recruitment this year.
In special periods like these, and depending on the circumstances, “we can talk about the needs of more than 100 temporary workers per company,” he reveals to DN/Dinheiro Vivo, acleader of the country from the Eurofirms group in Portugal, Sara Pimpão. The head of this HR company adds that, despite the needs for the Christmas period and the increase in requests for reinforcements which are generally more concentrated from the second half of November this year, the recruiter has already “requested any volume, especially for companies linked to the food sector.”
The economic uncertainty that Portugal is going through does not seem to be bothering traders so much that “this year we are seeing a 38% increase in the number of requests for staff”, says the lead brandr from Manpower. And as Daniela Lourenço points out, the number of requests for this temporary reinforcement depends on the season in question and the size of the company requesting it. “The Christmas period always brings a high volume of orders from temporary workers, with a very high average number of orders, sometimes in the hundreds.”
References also confirmed by Multipessoal. According to Eduardo Gomes, the sourcing manager from the company: “This year the number of orders for Black Friday and the Christmas period is already higher than last year.” Based on the requests the company has already received, it states that it is talking about “average values in the range of 250 to 300 employees hired for this special season”.
With the temporary labor market so active, the President of the Portuguese Association of Companies in the Private Sector of Employment and Human Resources (APESPE-RH) states that this will be “a very dynamic and demanding period in terms of human resources management”.
However, Afonso Carvalho has no doubt that, despite the fact that these are temporary reinforcements, “companies are always very attentive, especially in the current context where turnover is high, and therefore they take advantage of occasions such as Black Friday to retain the best employees .” “. “There are many cases where they propose longer-term contracts, not only to cover the Christmas period, but sometimes to meet other long-term needs,” he also guarantees.
Distribution
After contacting major distribution companies, most brands guarantee that they will not use temporary workers for these seasons this year, especially as they have strengthened their staff in recent months. Only El Corte Inglés explained that it has already started hiring for the Christmas period and that there are more than 500 vacancies open.
The Os Mosqueteiros group said that since the group is made up of independent business people, it is up to everyone to strengthen the teams.
Continente states that its “planning is constantly updated to ensure that customers have everything they need, especially during the Christmas period.” On the other hand, and in terms of promotions, almost all brands indicate that, as in previous years, they will make price cuts this season.
El Corte Inglés, for example, considers Black Friday “a very important promotional concept for the trade”. “On Black Friday, promotions affect all industries, with an emphasis on technology, home appliances and gadgets,” says the company, which states that the result is always very positive: “In some situations we had record sales.”
According to an analysis by KuantoKusta, what Portuguese people most want to buy to take advantage of Black Friday promotions are products from the technology and home appliance categories (smartphones, televisions and refrigerators).
What was it like in 2022
Proving that consumers are excited about buying at these times, Reduniq (a terminal and online payment company) revealed that at Christmas 2022 there was “a 25% increase in sales and the average spend was 231 euros, compared to 207 euros in 2021 “.
On Black Friday, the company saw sales increase by 11% and transactions increase by 17%. SIBS (operates the Multibanco network) says that on December 23, 2022, the highest number of purchases per second ever occurred, with 365 transactions per second.
The same day also saw the highest number of daily physical purchases on the Multibanco network, 82 basis points above the average for the entire year. On Black Friday last year, e-commerce continued to gain importance when shopping in Portugal. “More than a fifth (22%) of the amount spent went to online purchases,” after surpassing 18% of the value of online purchases last year, the company revealed.
Source: DN
