This holiday season is a time for gathering and celebrating with family and friends, gift giving, reflection and thanks. However, as I shared in my 8th Commandment of Recruiting, businesses should continue their recruiting efforts year round even during the holidays. Additionally, the U.S. Census Bureau has some interesting holiday-related facts and figures from its collection of statistics that I would like to share with you.
Trump Recruiting During the Holiday Season
In a rush to build his cabinet, President-elect Trump has continued his frantic pace of recruiting key allies. This non-stop recruiting has continued through the holiday season. This is a lesson to all businesses to continue their recruiting efforts even during such a festive season.
Business Transactions Continue During the Holiday Season
The major reason businesses should continue recruiting efforts during the holiday season is there is a major rush to the stores during this festive season. During last year’s holiday season $23,800,000 in retail sales was spent at the nation’s department stores.
Additionally, $55.7 billion was spent last holiday season via both electronic and mail-order house shopping in December 2015, which was the highest estimated total for any month last year.
Buying Of Christmas Tree Decorations
Last holiday season $1.1 billion was spent on imports of Christmas tree ornaments from China between January and September 2016. Imports from China led the way with 92.0 percent of the total imports of Christmas tree ornaments.
Furthermore, $346.0 million of imports of Christmas tree lights were made from China between January and September 2016. Christmas tree lights imported from China accounted for 87.0 percent of the total imports for that product.
These are both areas President-elect Trump should focus in on to improve U.S. manufacturing. The result will be American employers will boast recruiting efforts resulting in more high paying U.S. manufacturing jobs.
Other Interesting Holiday Facts
There were 560 locations nationwide that primarily produced dolls, toys and games in 2014, an increase of 15 locations from 2013 (545); they employed 6,215 workers in the pay period including March 12, a decrease of 323 employees from 2013 (6,538). California led the nation with 93 establishments.
Some names of places associated with the holiday season consist of a dozen places named Holly, including Mount Holly, N.C. (population 14,176), and Holly Springs, Miss. (7,610). There is Snowflake, Ariz. (5,666); Santa Claus, Ind. (2,474); North Pole, Alaska (2,189); Noel, Mo. (1,824); and — if you know about reindeer — Dasher, Ga. (963), and Rudolph, Wis. (432). There is also Unity, N.H. (1,603), and Peace, N.D. (28).
There were 23.6 million young domestic turkeys hatched during September of this year in the United States, up 21.0 percent from September 2015.
$392 million was spent on imports of tapered candles last holiday season. Most of these came from Vietnam, representing more than 35.0 percent of America’s imported tapered candles, followed by Canada with 24.0 percent. Many of these candles are lit during Diwali (Nov. 11), Hanukkah (Dec. 6-14) and Kwanzaa (Dec. 26-Jan. 1) celebrations.
In Summary
I wish all of you and your families a happy and safe holiday season. However, U.S. businesses cannot let up recruiting efforts. Our foreign competitors certainly will not. Therefore, talent acquisition needs to be a year round process.
