Consumer News: Looking for a holiday job? Hint: don't search for 'seasonal jobs'

Monster says fewer than 3% of seasonal openings advertise themselves that way and September is when hiring starts taking off

• Holiday hiring starts earlier than many job seekers think: Monster found seasonal posting activity jumped 44% from August to September last year.

• Searching only for "seasonal jobs" could cause you to miss openings: Fewer than 3% of seasonal postings identified by Monster used words such as "seasonal," "holiday," or "temporary" in the job title.

• Don't wait until November: Seasonal posting activity peaked in October in both 2024 and 2025 before falling about 24% the following month.

If you're hoping to earn some extra money during the holidays, searching for "seasonal jobs" might be one of the worst ways to find one.

And waiting until November could be another mistake.

Monster's new Seasonal Hiring Index analyzed seasonal job-posting activity from August through December in 2024 and 2025 and found employers start ramping up much earlier than many job seekers might expect.

In 2025, seasonal posting activity jumped 44% from August to September. Even after removing delivery and driving jobs, which can significantly influence holiday hiring numbers, postings increased 31%.

October was the busiest month in both years analyzed.

Then opportunities started disappearing. Monster found seasonal posting activity fell 24.3% from October to November 2024 and 24% during the same period in 2025.

For anyone hoping to land a holiday job this year, the message is pretty clear: September isn't too early to start looking.

Surprisingly, don't search for 'seasonal jobs'

Perhaps the most useful finding from Monster's research has nothing to do with when you search, but what you actually type into the search box.

Fewer than 3% of postings Monster identified as seasonal in any month during 2025 actually included words such as "seasonal," "holiday," "temporary," "summer," "winter," or "Christmas" in the job title.

In other words, if you search exclusively for "seasonal jobs," it could cause you to overlook a lot of them. Instead, Monster recommends searching for specific positions that interest you.

Among the job titles that showed seasonal hiring patterns were:

• Delivery driver

• Retail sales associate

• Cashier

• Package handler

• Retail stocker

• Store associate

• Stock associate

• Beauty advisor

• Tax associate and tax expert

• Intern and sales intern

The nice takeaway here is that it also means holiday opportunities aren't limited to working a cash register at your local shopping mall. Monster found seasonal patterns across transportation and logistics, retail, tax and accounting, internships, and other fields.

Search earlier (like right now) and search wider

Its also smart for job seekers to use the data to change how they hunt for seasonal work right now.

Start by searching for the actual job you want rather than the word "seasonal." If you want warehouse work, for example, try searches for "package handler," "warehouse associate," or "stocker."

Then broaden the search beyond just retailers.Delivery companies, warehouses, restaurants, hotels, and customer-service operations can all need additional workers as the holidays approach. Tax-related employers can also begin staffing ahead of the upcoming filing season.

And definitely don't assume you should wait until stores put up their Christmas decorations to start applying. In both years Monster studied, nearly half of seasonal posting activity occurring from August through December happened during September and October.

There's one caveat to the numbers: Monster's data measures job-posting activity, not the number of people actually hired or necessarily the number of unique open positions.

But for job seekers, the timing still provides a useful clue. If you're hoping for a seasonal paycheck this year, start searching now and definitely leave the word "seasonal" out of the search box.