Every year people across the globe participate in a ceremony named after a 3rd century saint from Italy: Saint Valentine. While there are articles about what to buy, or what to wear, or how to make the best cupcakes for Valentine's Day, here at the Job Creator Spotlight, we are going to look at whether the so called "Day of Love", gives a little love in the sense of more jobs. Specifically, what kind of boost to hiring or overtime does Valentine's Day have on the retail florist industry?
Let's look at the industry first, specifically independent florists. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics a florists median pay is $11.45 an hour, which is not terrible for a job that only requires a high school diploma (or equivalent). While formal training is not required, those with greater experience can expect to make more. Many florists work for small shops and while they may have business all year round, Valentine's Day is a busy day for what is usually a fairly small enterprise. To gauge the impact this one day spike in business has on them, over a dozen independent florists across a three county area in upstate New York were polled and asked the following questions. Below is a summary of the responses to the different questions:
1. How many employees do you have?
Only independent florists were polled, so predictably the number of total employees was not very high. At most, there were a few full time employees and several part time employees. The average of total full time employees was two per store. While nearly all had part time employees at different times, there was not enough quantifiable data to get a good average.
2. Roughly what percentage of your business for the year does Valentine's Day represent?
The answer here varied significantly and only a few gave a clear answer as to why that was. One cited a reliance on weddings, another said that Christmas was a more important holiday. The average percentage of business derived from this holiday was 20%.
3. Have you hired anyone to help you with this holiday, specifically?
This is the question that drives this website, and here the answers were very interesting. None of the florists polled indicated that they would be hiring other florists. What they were hiring for, in the short term, were delivery drivers and retail clerks. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these two fields pay a median wage of $9.44 and $9.38 respectively. This is less than a florist would make, and does not require any special training beyond how to operate the required tools (a vehicle or a cash register). Thus it makes a lot of sense that these easily transferrable job duties are passed on to temporary employees. While most of the answers were a bit vague, the average increase was around three temporary hires.
4. Do you plan on offering additional hours or overtime to current employees?
Due to the small size of these businesses many employees were salaried and not eligible to receive overtime. A few were offering their part time employees more hours during this busy season based on their availability.
These questions helped answer the question of how does Valentine's Day impact job creation. The spike in orders and surge of business leads to an increase in payroll, if only for a brief time. While it is to be expected that when business increases people will be hired, what was interesting was the work they were hired for. Simpler jobs and tasks that do not require much training, but make up a large amount of time each order requires, is where the florists dedicate their extra revenue. It makes a lot of sense, but it is very interesting to see the hand of the market at work. The floral shops didn't hire more florists, they hired people to do the other jobs so they could focus on making beautiful flower displays.
The results of this unscientific, but hopefully insightful, survey illustrates that for one small section of an industry, independent florists, Valentine's Day is more than just flowers and candy. It also means temporary jobs and more hours. The jobs being created are not the highest paying, but they also do not require advanced training. In fact, for the majority of shops, the way they handle a fifth of their business for the year is through adding people to their payroll. So when you are buying something from one of these shops for someone special, know that you are helping someone else earn a little extra money as well.
A special thanks to just a few of the stores polled who offered to have their website listed below:
http://www.fleurtaciousdesigns.net/
http://www.centralfloristofalbany.com/
http://www.maloneysflorist.com/
http://www.laurelsflowershop.com/
