Kohl's 1,400 Seasonal Hires: Warehouse Pay Hits $27/hr
Kohl's is adding 1,400 seasonal roles across Southern California, with warehouse pay up to nearly $27 per hour and a $1.25 overnight premium. The wage spread between store and distribution jobs offers a real-time benchmark for holiday talent acquisition in a tight labor market.
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HR & Workforce briefing
Key takeaways
- Kohl's is adding 1,400 seasonal roles across Southern California, with warehouse pay up to nearly $27 per hour and a $1.25 overnight premium.
- The wage spread between store and distribution jobs offers a real-time benchmark for holiday talent acquisition in a tight labor market.
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In this briefing
Mentioned
Key Intelligence
Key Facts
- 1Kohl's is hiring 1,400 temporary positions across Southern California, spanning local stores and distribution/e-fulfillment centers.
- 2In-store seasonal roles pay $17 to $24 per hour; warehouse roles pay $18 to nearly $27 hourly.
- 3A $1.25 hourly premium applies to overnight warehouse positions.
- 4Seasonal roles include truck unloader, stockroom associate, retail associate, beauty adviser, and overnight stockroom worker.
- 5Applicants can apply at Careers.Kohls.com/seasonal or text 'APPLY' to 24508.
- 6Costco brought back the twisted churro for a limited time at $1.49, after removing it in January 2024; the hot dog and drink combo remains $1.50, a price held since 1985.
Who's Affected
Seasonal warehouse roles at Kohl's pay up to nearly $27 hourly, with extra overnight premium
Analysis
For HR leaders, Kohl's seasonal hiring data is a window into 2026 holiday labor dynamics. The chain is paying $17 to $24 per hour for store roles and $18 to nearly $27 for warehouse roles, plus a $1.25 hourly overnight premium—signals that distribution and e-fulfillment talent remains the most expensive and competitive segment. Meanwhile, the Goodwill–CVS training lab points to a growing reliance on community-based workforce development to fill specialized healthcare roles.
On September 28, 2026, the Orange County Register and San Bernardino Sun both reported on a cluster of workforce and retail developments across Southern California. The most substantial item: Kohl's announced plans to hire 1,400 temporary positions across the region. The hiring spans local stores and the retailer's distribution and e-fulfillment centers, with job listings revealing not just the scale but the wage structure. In-store roles pay between $17 and $24 per hour, while warehouse positions pay between $18 and almost $27 hourly, plus a $1.25 hourly premium for overnight shifts. Roles listed include truck unloaders, stockroom associates, retail associates, beauty advisers, and overnight stockroom workers. Applications are being accepted through Careers.Kohls.com/seasonal or by texting 'APPLY' to 24508.
The chain is paying $17 to $24 per hour for store roles and $18 to nearly $27 for warehouse roles, plus a $1.25 hourly overnight premium—signals that distribution and e-fulfillment talent remains the most expensive and competitive segment.
This seasonal hiring push offers a granular window into the 2026 holiday labor market. The wage spread between store and warehouse roles—up to nearly $27 per hour for warehouse work—signals that distribution and e-fulfillment jobs remain the most competitive segment for retail talent. The $1.25-per-hour overnight premium is a classic shift differential, but its appearance in seasonal staffing suggests employers are using targeted pay incentives to fill less desirable shifts rather than raising base wages across the board. For HR leaders, the Kohl's data is a benchmark: any retailer competing for Southern California seasonal workers must now reckon with a wage floor around $17 for store roles and closer to $18 for warehouse roles, with premium pay for overnight shifts.
The article title also references Goodwill opening a CVS training lab, though the published excerpts do not provide operational details. Even so, the announcement itself is meaningful for workforce development. Goodwill, a nonprofit known for job training and placement, partnering with CVS Health to create a pharmacy or healthcare training facility suggests a targeted effort to build a pipeline of certified pharmacy technicians or customer service workers for CVS stores. In a tight labor market, such partnerships are increasingly important for filling specialized roles and providing underemployed workers with credentialed pathways. The lack of detail should not obscure the strategic signal: community-based organizations are becoming direct feeders into corporate healthcare talent pipelines.
What to Watch
At the same time, the roundup includes a consumer-facing retail development: Costco brought back its twisted churro as a limited-time item at $1.49. The chain removed the item in January 2024 and replaced it with a 750-calorie chocolate chip cookie priced at $2.49; the hot dog and drink combo has held at $1.50 since 1985. Costco teased the return on social media last week, and on Monday, September 27, the company's Instagram featured a video montage of an employee placing the churro sign back on the menu with a limited-time sticker. At least one member reported buying a churro at the Murrieta location on Tuesday evening, September 28. The return illustrates how low-priced, nostalgic food-court items can drive member engagement, foot traffic, and social media conversation without requiring a permanent menu commitment.
For Kohl's, the key unknown is how many of these 1,400 temporary roles convert to permanent positions and whether the wage levels pressure margins during the holiday season. For Goodwill and CVS, the training lab's next milestone will be placement rates for graduates and whether the model scales to other regions. For Costco, the limited-time churro is a consumer sentiment test—if sales outperform, the item may return permanently, but the chain's history suggests limited-time offers are used to create urgency without committing to permanent menu changes. Together, these developments illustrate the intersecting pressures of labor availability, workforce development, and consumer loyalty shaping the retail sector heading into the critical fourth quarter.
Source cluster
Primary reporting
Cite This Page
"Kohl's 1,400 Seasonal Hires: Warehouse Pay Hits $27/hr." HR & Workforce Intelligence Brief, September 29, 2026. https://gethrbrief.com/story/kohls-1400-seasonal-hires-pay-trends
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