New rules, fierce competition to find warehouse workforces

From flex schedules to much better benefits packages, warehouse and distribution companies and their labor recruiting agents have gotten creative to recruit workers and then, crucially, to keep them from getting lured away.

Recruiters start searching locally, which helps builds local connections, but they are willing to stretch. Because for the right compensation, they say, prospective workers will endure some travel.

One option? Calling refugee settlement agencies.

Lynne Cravero is a regional operations director for ACCU Staffing Services, a longtime industrial labor recruiter in the tri-state area. Some staffing problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and onerous pandemic health policies have improved but conditions still are not close to normal, she says.

“We’ve tapped into a lot of agencies that provide refugee workers,” Cravero said. “For example, people have come over from Afghanistan recently. That’s a whole other work force that’s legal to work in the United States. They are provided everything they need to go to work.

“We just try to connect with all different kinds of groups, communities, clubs, churches,” she said. “We’ll do anything to recruit and find people.”

New Jersey, in particular, has exploded with warehouse and distribution centers. Amazon, in the space of five years, has become the largest private employer in the state with about 49,000 people on its payroll.

E-commerce, or online buying, is the phenomenon primarily driving the proliferation of warehouses and distribution centers. Food storage, dry and refrigerated, is another busy sector. And while e-commerce has calmed somewhat, as people return to shopping at stores, online buying is expected to see further growth.

Amazon handles recruiting internally. It, too, will not overlook unconventional sources for workers.

“We have a brand new, state-of-the-art fulfillment center in Wilmington, Delaware,” spokesman Vince Kelly said. “It’s got, like, over 3,000 full-time employees. When they were looking for that, they partnered with every community organization imaginable.”

Commerce Drive is one area that Logan Township has set aside for warehouses and distribution centers.

Amazon opened a sorting facility there in October 2021, which is its second here. About half of it is being used as construction continues, with another section expected to be ready in August. About 1,000 workers are employed between the two sites.

Amazon also has a fulfillment center and a delivery station in Logan.

Kelly said Amazon finds there is no hard-and-fast profile for those who come looking for a job. One departure from traditional hiring requirements is there is no demand to have a high school graduation certificate.

“Obviously, they’ll be a group of people that don’t know what they want to do,” Kelly said. “But we have a ton of people that, because of the flexibility in scheduling, when they rejoin the workforce they come here. Because they’re looking for just to earn a little extra pocket change. So, it’s not really like one we can say, ‘85 percent of our workforce is between 18 and 30.’”

Kelly said a new hire will make $18 per hour, which also is nationally the average at the company.

“New Jersey is basically in line with that average, because it’s a higher cost of living,” he said. “Most employees will start, day one, having access to comprehensive health benefits."

Cravero said a lot of people that ACCU interviews are referrals by friends and family. “We do a lot of social media advertising, as well,” she said.

“I think each area is a little different,” Cravero said. “I wouldn’t say it’s a super-young workforce. You have to remember, a lot of the positions we have are entry level. Packers and that type of things. So, (we cannot) … zero in one demographic of people. We really do have everyone.”

There is one group every recruiter would like to tap but whose members would rather do almost anything else than shifts in warehouses, according to Cravero.

“We don’t see college students that want to do these kinds of jobs anymore,” Cravero said. “We don’t see young people that want to do these kinds of jobs. That’s not who’s applying. Not, like, high school grads looking for a first job.

“No, no, no, no,” she said. “They don’t want to work that hard. Because they can go work for the same amount of money at McDonald’s.”

Kelly said Amazon does make efforts to attract high school graduates, visiting schools to talk about the company. “Our workforce staffing team was at one that was hosted by the Philadelphia school district a couple months back at a high school,” he said.

In today’s conditions, Cravero says, a $1 an hour pay hike is more than enough for workers to switch jobs. And often workers don’t need to travel very far to do so, she says.

“It’s so true,” Cravero says. “It’s so crazy.”

Cravero says many otherwise suitable candidates just will not work for minimum wage in a heavy manual work climate.

“And if they do?” she says. “It doesn’t last long. Because they can go down the street. Like I said, they’ll chase 50 cents to make more money. And especially now, because things are so outrageously expensive ... they have to chase the dollar.”