December should be officially declared as broke month — it’s when we go on expensive vacations, buy Christmas gifts for our friends and family, and of course, start preparing for the new year.
But the year end needn’t be all about spending money. In fact, if you have a bit of spare time on your hands, the festive season could be a great opportunity to earn fast and easy cash.
Festive event jobs in Singapore — earn $8 to $10 per hour
Nearing Christmas and Chinese New Year, there is usually a spike in event job openings. Most are for shopping malls and shops — think sales promoters, gift wrappers, and other temporary, ad hoc roles.
For such event jobs, you can expect to be paid about $8 to $9 per hour, which is not bad considering you don’t need any qualifications. Some pay extra on weekends and public holidays, but even then, the rate goes up to at most only $10 per hour.
Assuming you go all out and work five 4-hour shifts a week at $9 per hour, that’s $180.
As mentioned, it’s quite easy to snag these jobs (if you’re fast enough): they usually provide training (if required), and don’t need you to have any experience. Some don’t even hold interviews — as long as you’re prepared to work, they’re prepared to hire.
While some employers don’t mind you working just a day or two, most prefer those who can commit at least 3 to 5 shifts a week. This is not an issue for students on holiday or those working flexible hours, but it can be problematic if you — like most of us — hold 9-to-6 jobs.
Nonetheless, here are the 5 main types of festive event jobs:
1. Christmas gift wrap assistants
In November/December, many malls and department stores will have openings for “gift-wrap assistants”:
There’s not much to it — basically you just help shoppers to wrap their Christmas shopping. Takashimaya and Orchard ION have transparent recruitment ads everywhere, but others go through recruitment agencies like Recruit Express.
They’ll usually indicate where the mall is though, so you don’t have to worry.
2. Roadshow promoter and event crew
If you ask me, gift-wrapping is the best because you get to work in a comfortable, air-conditioned environment. But if you’re more sociable and outdoorsy, you may enjoy helping out at roadshows and other events.
These organisers usually hire promoters to help with sales and distribute flyers. For instance, Christmas Wonderland is looking for event helpers to help check admission tickets and assist visitors in general ($7/h on weekdays, $8/h on weekends).
Some events also need mascots and ushers: you can either be the one wearing the costume, or the puller guiding them around. These are a lot more tiring but they pay about the same ($8 to $9 per hour).
3. Concierge/voucher redemption counter staff
During peak shopping seasons like Christmas, shopping centres tend to run a bunch of promotions and campaigns where they hand out vouchers and free stuff.
Hence, they’ll need helpers to facilitate redemptions and give out freebies. These jobs may require some cashiering and data entry as well, as you’ll need a record of the transactions you handled.
4. Temporary retail assistants
Most of the year, retail isn’t exactly a booming industry. So it makes sense that for most shops’ usual, full-time manpower is insufficient for crazy shopping seasons.
They’ll need extra hands for usual retail duties like sales, packing and cashiering. The recruitment posts will indicate that the temporary help is only need until the year end, or whenever the festive period blows over.
American chain Fossil, for instance, is looking for a whopping 39 Christmas retail helpers, but until the end of 2019 only.
5. Packers, assistants and other miscellaneous jobs
… And then there are some duties that simply don’t fall into any of the above categories.
Depending on the nature of the business, different companies may need help with different things like packing, picking and maybe even processing of orders.
In addition to gift-wrapping roles, Takashimaya is also hiring “festive toy promoters” and “Chinese New Year hamper wrappers”.
Similarly, Far Ocean Sea Products probably expects a significant increase in orders during Christmas and Chinese New Year (abalone, maybe?), so they are hiring extra help (“packers”) to work between 16 to 30 Dec 2019 and 2 to 20 Jan 2020 for $8 per hour.
Other part-time jobs in Singapore
If you look up portals like Job Central and Fast Jobs, those are the common ones you’ll see. But if they don’t suit your schedule, there are other ways to earn money during this festive season.
1. GrabHitch and/or car-sharing
Because there will inevitably be a spike in social gatherings, drivers can toggle on your GrabHitch availability and look out for car-sharing opportunities.
2. Pet-sitting
December also happens to be the school holidays and peak travel season, which is something you can take advantage of as well.
You can earn extra bucks by helping others to pet sit at $20 to $30 per day. Heck, since jungalows are so popular now, I bet you could probably find someone who’ll pay you to help water their houseplants too.
3. AirFrov
If you’re the one travelling, you can use platforms like AirFrov to look for personal shopper “lobangs”. How it works is that non-travellers will request for stuff exclusively available overseas, and if you’re travelling to the destination in question, you can help them buy it for a fee.
And of course, if all else fails, you can always help people queue up for bak kwa next year!
Bonus: 7 Telegram groups with event job “lobangs”
While researching for this article, I found that Telegram is particularly popular for part-time and ad hoc job recruitment posts. I cannot vouch for how “legit” they are, but here are the few I chanced upon:
- Singapore Part Time Jobs (@parttimejobsg)
- Part Time / Contract Jobs in Singapore (@sgparttimejobs)
- Singapore Part Time Jobs – sgQuickJobs (@sgquickjobs)
- Part Time Jobs Available (@singaporeparttimejobs)
- Cash & Event Jobs (@sgcashjobs)
- Singapore Events Jobs (@sgeventjobs)
- SG Part Time Job KAKIS (@ptksg)
If the lewd “SG Nasi Lemak” scandal has taught us anything, it’s that there is very little regulation around Telegram. If you’re using it to look for jobs, it wouldn’t hurt to be a little more careful.
Always “CSI” the employers and job posters, and read up as much as you can before meeting anyone.
Do you have any other tips for earning quick cash this festive season? Share them with us in the comments below!
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