Holiday Season Hires at Retailers

Santa must be feeling generous about retail holiday jobs this season, but slightly less giving than he was last year.

John Challenger, who is the chief executive officer of the research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said that the retail sector plans to add about 600,000 seasonal staffers between October and early January, down from 627,600 last year.

He also said that the number is a relatively good sign for holiday job seekers, considering the recent layoffs in several industries from media to consumer goods. Many of the retailers are boosting their seasonal staffs as they get ready to open early on Black Friday weekend and take on the holiday rush.

”There are a lot of temporary hires going on as retailers hear up for the holiday season,” said Challenger. ”Consumers might be opening up their wallets a little bit more over the holiday season.”

Among the major retails that will boost their seasonal hiring, Macy’s, Kohl’s and Target all said that they plan to add more holiday workers than they did last year.

The company has said that this season, Macy’s plans to hire 78,000 holiday workers for its 850 U.S. stores, including Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, up 4 percent from last year. Part of that seasonal job growth is for the midnight opening of Macy’s department stores during Black Friday weekend alone.

The company has also said that Kohl’s plans to hire more than 40,000 holiday workers this season for its 1,129 U.S. stores, up 5 percent from last year due to the growth in stores. In line with last year’s seasonal hiring, Kohl’s expects to bring, on average, 35 additional associates per store. The company had no additional information for Black Friday weekend.

The company has said that Target plans to hire ”slightly more holiday workers” than the 92,000 seasonal staffers it took on last year. For Black Friday weekend, Target’s 1,767 U.S stores will increase their staffing by about 67 percent.

For some of the temporary workers, their performance over the next two months could determine future job opportunities.

”Last month, nearly 40 percent of the people who joined stayed on after the holidays as regular team members,” said Molly Snyder, who is a Target spokesperson. ”So there is a tremendous opportunity for people to take the holiday season and turn it into a regular year-round position.”

That is good news for those who find work this season. But the boost in holiday hiring for Macy’s Kohl’s and Target does not reflect an increase in seasonal employment across the retain industry, Gad Levanon, who is an associate director of macroeconomic research at The Conference Board, said.

The company had finally said that among other big-box retailers, Crate and Barrel plans to hire roughly the same number of holiday workers as they did last year, while Best Buy said, in late September, that it plans to cut its holiday hiring in half this year.

”For some of these big department stores, the fact that they are adding 4 percent or 5 percent more workers is good news” considering the broader economy, said Levanon.