The Labor Department reported the national unemployment rate ticked back up in June – to just 4% — up from 3.8% in May. This still represents a drop from last June’s 4.3% unemployment rate. This trend is making the already challenging task of staffing convenience stores that much more challenging.
According to a recent report in The Atlantic focusing on the Midwest, nearly 99% of those who want a job in the state of Iowa are working. “Businesses are getting a little desperate,” Elisabeth Buck, president of the United Way of Iowa, told the magazine. Joe McConville, who operates a small chain of pizza restaurants in the state said he is facing a “black hole” in finding more experienced 20-something employees, forcing him to increase wages and benefit costs.
In the c-store market, at least one chain has looked at its benefits package as a means of attracting and retaining quality staff members. According to a recent Convenience Store Decisions report, High’s of Baltimore has rolled out an affordable health care plan for its nearly 250 part-time employees.
One additional area of focus may be increasing the soft costs in paying attention to improved work-life balance, or, in the words of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, “work/life harmony.” As many 20-something workers place greater value on the meaning of their work relative to their overall life, there may be both a challenge and an opportunity for c-stores with their non-9-to-5 heritage. The traditional 9-to-5 workday is going by the wayside in most industries, workers are exploring the benefits of alternative workdays to better fit their lifestyles and c-stores can be the answer. According to a recent article in Entrepreneur, workers experimenting with working at different times of the day are finding improved personal and professional productivity. For c-stores – picking up on this mindset and properly communicating its popularity may help fill in some of that hiring “black hole.”
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