At a time when many companies are normally hoarding workers for the holiday shopping rush, seasonal work is scarcer than it has been in years as firms increasingly look to do more with less amid economic uncertainty and rising AI adoption.
Retailers will slash seasonal hiring to levels not seen since after the Great Recession, the National Retail Federation projects. Companies are expected to add 265,000 to 365,000 positions, the trade group’s CEO said in a conference call last week. That would be as much as a 40 percent drop from the 442,000 roles they added in 2024, the NRF noted, a reflection of how companies are attempting to offset tariff costs and tighten their budgets.
At a time when many companies are normally hoarding workers for the holiday shopping rush, seasonal work is scarcer than it has been in years as firms increasingly look to do more with less amid economic uncertainty and rising AI adoption.
Retailers will slash seasonal hiring to levels not seen since after the Great Recession, the National Retail Federation projects. Companies are expected to add 265,000 to 365,000 positions, the trade group’s CEO said in a conference call last week. That would be as much as a 40 percent drop from the 442,000 roles they added in 2024, the NRF noted, a reflection of how companies are attempting to offset tariff costs and tighten their budgets.
The staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas also forecasts the weakest holiday hiring since 2009, “with only a handful of companies making public commitments to holiday staffing,” according to a September report. Andy Challenger, the firm’s senior vice president, pointed to the collision of inflationary pressures, continued reliance by companies on “automation and permanent staff instead of large waves of seasonal hires.”
“While we could see a late hiring push if holiday sales surprise to the upside, the cautious pace of announcements so far suggests that companies are not betting on a big seasonal surge,” Challenger said in the report. “This year may be more about doing more with less.”
These reports offer some insight into the state of the labor market at a time when the government shutdown has held up the release of data that economists and analysts use to interpret the landscape.
For workers, the pullback in seasonal hiring is coming at a time when desire for these positions is on the rise, data from Indeed suggest: Interest in seasonal work from job seekers was up 27 percent at the end of September compared to the same time last year, and up more than 50 percent compared to 2023.
Greater desire for part-time work might reflect job seekers’ frustration with one of the strangest markets in years. A rare and vexing blend of forces — low unemployment and job quits, creeping layoffs and sluggish hiring — means there are fewer opportunities, resulting in some of the toughest job-hunting conditions since the 2008 financial crisis.
Layoffs reached recession-like levels in October, according to data from Challenger, as a recent spate of cuts by large employers such as UPS, Amazon and Target pushed the total figure for 2025 job reductions past 1 million. Meanwhile, executives like Walmart’s Doug McMillon are talking about keeping headcount down in the coming years as they hope to unlock efficiencies from AI. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
In remarks at a Harvard Business Review event in early November, McMillon — whose company has pledged to keep its workforce around 2.1 million for the next three years — said that AI will transform every job at the Arkansas-based retail juggernaut, from store associates to the C-suite. While it will create new jobs, it will also “eliminate some tasks and will eliminate some roles,” McMillon said.
Retailers are pulling back on hiring as they brace for an uncertain end to the year: Consumers have been bogged down by rising grocery prices and tariff-induced inflation on toys, apparel and electronics, making some more reluctant to splurge with more of their budget is allocated to food and rent. Though consumers tend to be resilient around the holidays, some analysts expect they will be choosier about their purchases this year, be more deals-driven, and forgo spending on themselves to afford gifts for family members.
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