The annual stampede of seasonal retail job openings continues to taper off, with hiring expected to be at its lowest level since the Financial Crisis.
As mid-October approaches, some major companies have not said if they will bulk up their front lines to a specific target.
“It’s a little bit of chicken right now with retailers and the economy going, ‘Okay, who’s going to move first?'” said Trent Cotton, head of talent-acquisition insights at recruiting-software company ICIMS. “It will be interesting to see this at the end of the year.”
This year’s retail industry hiring push is on track to be lower than last year’s tally of 461,000, according to career transition firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
A report released last month projects that this year will see around 450,000 seasonal retail jobs, the lowest gain in nearly 20 years.
“Almost every hiring announcement we’ve seen in the last three years is smaller and more surgical than the pre-pandemic playbook. Even if the big names come in at last year’s numbers, the total will likely fall well short of the 2019—2021 peaks,” chief revenue officer Andy Challenger said in a statement.
This year, Spirit Halloween and craft shop Michaels led the charge, saying they intended to hire 52,000 and 10,000 seasonal workers, respectively.
Amazon has not yet shared its plans, and Walmart told Business Insider it will take the same approach as last year, which did not have a hiring goal target. “Our stores are well-staffed and ready to serve customers this holiday season,” the company said.
Target said it will once again rely on its on-demand team of about 43,000 workers and leave further hiring up to local managers. Walmart and Target both said last year they would prioritize assigning additional seasonal hours to existing employees.
Cotton also said that these smaller numbers reflect a trend toward earlier hiring and less reliance on seasonal workers.
“They’re moving it back to over the summer, so that way they’re fully staffed by October going into November and December,” he said.
That point also came up several times during visit Business Insider had with Target’s chief stores officer Adrienne Costanzo in August. For some Target stores, the larger hiring push already happened in preparation for the critical back-to-school season, which also enabled managers to train new hires for the holidays.
But fewer seasonal jobs could also start to erode a once-common first step on workers’ career ladders.
Retail workers represent roughly one in ten US workers, and analysis from the Urban Institute estimates that six in 10 workers have held a retail job at some point in their careers.
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