Retail's holiday hiring push is shaping up to be worse than last year's disappointing run
Retail is a key step in many workers' career journey, and seasonal roles are how a lot of retail employees got their start.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images The retail industry's seasonal hiring push is on track to be the lowest in years.
The shift reflects a trend toward earlier hiring and less reliance on seasonal workers.
Fewer seasonal jobs could also start to erode a once-common first step on workers' career ladders.
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.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.businessinsider.com — the content belongs to Business Insider.
