June 16, 2025 Contingent Staffing: The Solution for Turbulent Times

How logistics companies can mitigate the twin troubles of rising tariffs and fluctuating demand by turning to contingent staffing.

By James Terry, Head of US Revenue, Indeed Flex

There’s no getting away from the twin impact of two things on the logistics sector – one of them ongoing, the other pretty new to this world:

1. The global tariff war that’s kicked off — something from the last six months.
2. Fluctuating consumer demand across the course of the year — an ever-present issue.

This post looks to cover both of those issues and the solutions you can use to minimize their impact.

Without a shadow of a doubt, global trade tariffs have introduced significant uncertainty across industries, and logistics and manufacturing are no exception. Intended as short-term measures to improve trade deals, tariffs could have long-lasting effects that may continue to evolve (as the tariffs themselves continue to evolve), creating an unpredictable environment for businesses.

The Tariff Effect: Opportunities and Challenges

Although tariffs are meant to boost local manufacturing, they have the unpleasant side-effect of increasing costs for industries that rely on imports.

Sectors like manufacturing, logistics, warehousing — which depend on the smooth flow of goods across borders — are already feeling the pressure of rising operational expenses. This is especially tough for companies with global supply chains, pushing them to reassess their workforce needs.

As Noah Yosif, Chief Economist at the American Staffing Association, explains: extended tariff policies could slow hiring and job growth, and even lead to layoffs. To avoid this scenario, businesses will need to adjust their staffing strategies to deal with increasing costs, and look at a range of different solutions.

Inflation and Economic Uncertainty: The Ripples Created

The effects of tariffs reach far beyond businesses. Rising costs are likely to reduce consumer spending, as people tighten their collective belts and only pay for essentials.

Despite these pressures, however, the job market has stayed resilient, with unemployment rates remaining low.

In fact, the global unemployment rate stands at 4.9% in 2025, the lowest level since 1991. And  while there are disparities between different regions, this figure shows the overall resilience of the global labor market, despite elevated living costs and weaker growth projections.

Not All Doom and Gloom: A Flexible Approach

In such a volatile environment, one thing worth considering is flexible staffing, to reduce overall costs.
This could mean relying on contingent workers who complement an existing, permanent workforce, or utilizing a more even mix of full-time employees and contingent workers, allowing you to increase productivity levels or scale back quickly, as conditions change.

This flexible approach enables businesses to respond to market fluctuations more quickly and effectively.

And now to focus on an annual issue that’s ever-present in the logistics and manufacturing sector…

The Age-Old Issue: Fluctuating Demand

For a number of businesses worldwide, the demand for their services is often seasonal.

For the logistics and manufacturing sector, demand hits its apex across the autumn and winter months, as holiday season ramps up. E-commerce activity ramps up in tandem and events like Cyber Monday come into play.

For example, online sales during ‘CyberWeek’ in 2023 rose 7.8% year-over-year, and Cyber Monday sales alone hit $12.4 billion, up 9.6% year-over-year.

But it’s one thing knowing that these peaks and troughs are coming up; it’s quite another dealing with them in a way that allows you to keep functioning as a business, that keeps customers happy at all times, and that doesn’t eat into your profit margins.

Here are five approaches that could help, in that respect:

1. Cross-train/upskill employees

Cross-training employees allows them to fill multiple roles, providing flexibility in staffing during peak periods. You can do this by offering specific training programs; online learning and development courses; mentorship programs; and/or offering ‘a week in the life of’ opportunities, where employees from one department shadow employees from another department, learning all about what they do.

Cross-training enhances the existing skills of employees and should reduce the need to hire externally when demand is high (and so reduce costs).

2. Retain your staff

It sounds obvious, but if you keep more of your regular workers on board, you won’t have to worry so much about filling shifts when those peaks in demand arise.

To drive better retention, you should turn to your available data — both real-time and historical –to ensure you keep your best workers and don’t have a revolving door of talent.

That data can tell you which roles and departments traditionally have a higher turnover, which teams are currently stretched, which roles are hardest to fill, and so on.

Workforce management software will give you this overview, but you can augment that with regular staff feedback surveys (to spot issues ahead of time) and a strong rewards and recognition program.

3. Hire temporary staff

Taking on temporary workers can be an effective way to deal with increased demand. Using temporary staff is a common solution, and can be particularly cost-effective for short-term needs, allowing you to adjust staffing levels as and when you need to.

This can also help you mitigate the risks associated with permanent hiring during uncertain times, i.e. when you’re not entirely sure when customer demand will suddenly fall again.
And it reduces the likelihood of high staff turnover, a result of perm staff being too stretched.

4. Get HR and Ops in sync

Ensuring that your HR and Ops team have a strong partnership, rather than working in silos, can make a world of difference when it comes to forecasting and demand.

HR can move from just ‘bringing bodies on board’ to being a strategic partner – advising Ops on where and how they can drive better retention, productivity, and general satisfaction, across the workforce.

For example, they may spot that rigid or inflexible shift patterns are leading to high turnover, as certain workers just can’t fit them in. By advising Ops of a small tweak in those shift patterns, to accommodate more staff, they could reduce the need for new hires and increase productivity, across the board.

5. Use technology to highlight key trends.

Utilize technology to analyze your workforce and recruitment data and spot key trends. If you can see, from previous seasons, where you had spikes in demand, where you had gaps in fulfillment, what your staff turnover was like, where you needed to turn to agencies, etc., then you can accurately forecast your future needs. Or you can look at real-time data and make similar decisions based on sound logic and key metrics. Doing so should enable you to adjust staffing levels to suit the time of year and avoid being overstaffed or understaffed.

If you don’t have preexisting in-house systems for analyzing this type of data, consider using an external platform that can give you a complete workforce overview. There are a number of different options available on the market, so it’s worth doing your homework to see which one best suits your needs.

Looking Ahead: Preparing for Ongoing Uncertainty

As global trade policies continue to change, even as this post is being written, logistics and manufacturing businesses stand to benefit from looking at more agile workforce strategies. And with demand often fluctuating rapidly, there’s certainly a need to develop flexible staffing models that can scale up or down quickly.

Ultimately, in times of volatility, having a variety of staffing options on the table is likely to be one thing that allows businesses to steal a march over the competition.

About the Author:
James Terry is Head of US Revenue at Indeed Flex. He has worked in the HR and staffing sector for over 15 years and holds an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. Throughout his career, James has built expertise in strategy, sales, and leadership, with a focus on driving high-performing organizations. His experience has broadened through assignments in multiple countries, delivering results in collaboration with local teams. 

Read more from the author:

Strategies for overcoming skills shortages in light industrial workforces | Indeed Flex, 2/19/2025

How to attract and keep top talent in logistics | Indeed Flex, 2/27/2025

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