Long Island's holiday hiring boom has changed. Here's where the jobs are

Seasonal work can be a way to bolster bank accounts ahead of holiday spending. But Long Island’s traditional holiday hiring surge has become less pronounced, even as some retailers, caterers and warehouse operators continue to add workers for the season. 

While the holiday season has historically provided the local economy a sizable bump in hiring starting in September before a comparable drop in jobs early in the new year, that spike and fall has become less dramatic in recent years, local economists said.

This year, the opportunities range from grocery and catering jobs to warehouse and distribution work. Stew Leonard’s, for example, has seasonal workers at $18.25 an hour at its two Long Island food stores, while Lessing’s Hospitality Group expects to add about 150 workers for the holiday rush. But the size of the seasonal hiring bump remains below what Long Island saw a decade ago.

“Over the last few years, that pick up has not been as dramatic,” said Steven Kent, economics professor at Molloy University.

One major reason, he said, is that larger retailers are holding onto seasonal workers long term, often in part-time roles throughout the year, making the large-scale hiring efforts of previous holiday seasons less necessary.

“They want to hire people to keep them on throughout the year and reduce turnover,” said Kent, former chief economist for the Long Island Association.

On top of that, the dominant role e-commerce plays during the holiday shopping season has shifted more seasonal hiring to logistics and distribution businesses, although automation will likely reduce the need for temporary workers over time, he said.

“Warehousing and distribution is probably going to shift more and more to robotics where you don’t need as many people,” he said.

Why the holiday hiring boom has slowed

Seasonal retail hiring on Long Island has slowed since 2015, with a large drop after 2022 and reached its lowest level in 2025, when retailers added 5,900 jobs between October and December, according to the state Department of Labor. Conversely, hiring in transportation and warehousing has remained relatively stable over the past decade.

The retail holiday hiring season usually runs from October through December in the region, while businesses in the transportation and warehousing industries start in September, according to the state Department of Labor.

Nationally, seasonal hiring plans in 2026 are up 26%, with companies announcing around 470,400 positions, according to a report released last week by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Last year, at 372,520, the number of seasonal hires was the lowest since Challenger began tracking the statistic in 2012. Even with the boost this year, seasonal hiring plans in 2026 are lower than the 660,150 announced by companies in 2024, the report said.

Amazon is one of the biggest recruiters this season, with plans to hire 300,000 workers — an increase from the 250,000 the company has hired for three years running. UPS said it would hire 100,000 seasonal workers this year.

The Challenger report also notes that fewer employers are announcing holiday hiring plans. As of Nov. 5, five large national companies had announced seasonal hiring plans, compared with 11 at the same time last year.

Walmart, for instance, said in an email to Newsday that the chain has not made a companywide holiday hiring push since 2022, although some locations may hire seasonally as needed. Other companies, including Marshalls and Target, said their stores are hiring for the holidays but have not published job numbers.

Marshalls is advertising several seasonal and temporary positions on Long Island, including merchandise and sales associates, with an hourly wage range of $17 to $20.50.

Target is advertising seasonal Long Island positions as well, including roles as stockers and cashiers, that pay $18.50 per hour.

Caution is driving a more conservative approach to hiring as retailers contend with “higher gas prices, persistent inflation, higher interest rates and elevated consumer debt,” according to a recent National Retail Federation report.

Retailers also are responding to a holiday shopping season that is less concentrated around Black Friday, said Mark Mathews, NRF chief economist and executive director of research.

Consumers increasingly begin shopping in October and expect discounts throughout the season, he said.

Who's hiring — and what they're paying

On Long Island, requests for recruiting services have been on par with or slightly above last year’s seasonal hiring push, said Jim Morris, owner of Express Employment Professionals, a staffing agency in Farmingdale.

Morris said his company largely gets inquiries from warehousing, distribution and light manufacturing businesses during this time of year, and those requests have remained steady heading into the holidays.

“After Labor Day, people start to get their projections and needs and what not in order,” Morris said. But he said employers that still need holiday workers are running short on time to hire and train them.

“If it’s not done in the next week, it’s too late,” he said on November 6.

The two Stew Leonard’s food stores in East Meadow and Farmingdale are nearly done hiring for the holiday season, said Ellen Story, vice president of human resources at the chain.

The stores have hired a similar number of seasonal employees — around 60 — over the years and started seasonal hiring in mid-October, she said. The positions pay $18.25 per hour.

Stew Leonard’s hires are often based on attitude and commitment to customer service, Story said, noting that seasonal jobs tend to be entry-level.

Seasonal positions usually last through the end of the year and can range from 15 hours to 40 hours per week depending on the needs of the department and a worker’s availability, a company spokeswoman said.

The Stew Leonard’s Farmingdale Wines & Liquors store also plans to hire an additional 50 people to meet an anticipated shopping rush, Story said, around 20 more than last year. The liquor store is owned and operated independently of the chain’s food stores. The store has cashier and merchandiser positions available starting at $18.25 per hour.

Emily Molina, 20, of Uniondale started working part time for Stew Leonard’s as a cashier while she was still in high school in 2023. Molina — now studying dental hygiene at Farmingdale State College — has returned as a seasonal employee.

“There’s always a spot open,” she said, noting that she’s cross-trained in several areas and she likes that the job is familiar and local.

She also works during the year as a part-time receptionist in a dentist office but said her shifts at Stew Leonard’s have been flexible. The jobs provide some extra cash while she’s in school, she said.

The appeal of a holiday paycheck

For Sklyar Egan, 20, of East Meadow, the holiday season provides a limited window when she can make extra money between attending school full time and playing lacrosse.

“I just like to be up and doing something,” said Egan, a junior at Georgian Court University who works seasonally at Lessing’s Hospitality Group’s Heritage Club at Bethpage.

Egan, who is currently studying abroad in Ireland and plans to return to Long Island before the end of December to work as a caterer, said she enjoys the work and extra income she earns.

“I get paid hourly and…my tables will tip me if I did a good job and they are able,” said Egan, who earned $18 an hour working previous holiday seasons. “And we also get a house tip at the end of the night.”

Egan lives at home and said she does not “have many expenses” of her own, so she largely comes back because she enjoys the work, her coworkers and the flexibility. She said she hopes to pick up around 38 hours a week during the last two to three weeks of the year.

Large local employers including Lessing’s, one of Long Island’s largest catering and restaurant businesses, are still ramping up hiring in anticipation of a busy holiday season.

“After Thanksgiving, we jam in the holiday party season,” said Steve Kirschbaum, vice president of catering for Lessing’s northeast operations. “That’s when, almost 7 days a week, we have parties.”

Lessing’s, which employs around 1,500 workers across its 17 event venues and nine restaurants on Long Island, plans to hire around 150 seasonal workers to meet demand from corporate holiday events and year-end weddings, Kirschbaum said. The company is looking to hire servers, bartenders and cooks with a starting pay of $19 an hour this year, he said.

Employees can work between eight hours and up to 40 a week, depending on their schedule and availability of work.

“We start building up our teams right after Labor Day,” he said. “We have a lot of college kids that when they come home, they work through New Year’s because they want to make some extra money.”

Kirschbaum said the catering business’ full schedule makes hiring additional staffers a necessity and helps keep labor costs such as overtime down.

“Payroll is expensive and when you add time and a half to that, it gets very expensive,” he said.

Kirschbaum said he believes higher living costs are also pushing more people to seek second jobs.

“Because the cost of everything has gone so high, tons of people are looking for extra jobs,” he said. “A lot of our staff work weekends or nights and they have another job.”

Searches for seasonal roles on the job site Indeed were up 28% from last year, the company said in an October report, part of an overall upward trend in workers seeking holiday gigs. The analysis attributes the desire for an extra paycheck largely to years of inflation and a spike in energy costs.

Why some small businesses are hiring fewer workers

Those same economic conditions, however, have limited hiring for some smaller Long Island businesses.

Lia Di Angelo, owner of Westbury Floral Designs, said she would ideally hire around 18 short-term staffers to get her through her busiest weeks of the year around Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. Ahead of this coming Christmas, she is likely to bring on around 10.

Between tariffs that have affected Latin American exporters of flowers, the rising cost of fuel driving increased delivery costs and higher overhead costs, Di Angelo said she’s falling behind on bills.

Colombia supplies a large share of flowers sold in the United States, and its flower industry remains affected by U.S. tariffs, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Higher prices across the board also mean customers see discretionary purchases like flowers as something they can easily avoid, she said.

“Nothing is the same, unfortunately. Even people with money are watching their dollars,” she said.

The result, she said, is a smaller seasonal staff than she would otherwise bring on. Di Angelo said she is looking to hire delivery drivers, customer service workers and floral designers at $17 an hour for up to 30 hours during her busy holiday weeks.

Long Islanders looking for work also can use state-funded local workforce development programs for career counseling, job matching and training. But those offices are geared more toward long-term employment than short-term holiday work.

Seasonal hiring is not a focus for the offices, which aim to help people launch careers, said John Sarcone, Oyster Bay deputy commissioner of intergovernmental affairs. Sarcone is also a former director of the Oyster Bay-North Hempstead-Glen Cove workforce development commission.

For workers who hope a seasonal job can turn into something permanent, Sarcone advised: “Stay the course, pay attention.”