Retailers expect to hire slightly fewer employees for the holiday shopping season

Retailers are ramping up hiring for the holiday season, but fewer seasonal employees are expected to be taken on this year to help customers in stores and assemble online orders in warehouses.

E-commerce giant Amazon said Thursday it will hire 250,000 full, part-time and seasonal workers for the crucial shopping period, rounding out a series of announcements made in recent weeks by the country’s top retailers.

Amazon is hiring the same number of employees it did last year, similar to Bath & Body Works and Target, which said in September it planned to bring in roughly 100,000 seasonal employees and offer current employees the option to work extra hours during the holiday shopping period.

Meanwhile, the department store Kohl’s encouraged people to apply for positions but stayed mum on its plans, mirroring Walmart, which said it’s been hiring store associates throughout the year and will tap into its own staff when needed during the busy season.

Others have indicated they will scale back their holiday hiring. Macy’s said it would add more than 31,500 seasonal positions this year across its Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury stores, as well as its distribution centers. Last year, the company added 38,000.

Geodis, a third-party logistics provider, said Wednesday that it plans to hire about 745 full- and part-time seasonal workers at its Indianapolis warehouses to support increased retail demand.

This year’s demand for seasonal workers comes as economists are watching the U.S. job market for signs of a slowdown. Job openings have come down steadily since peaking at 12.2 million in March 2022. When the economy roared back with unexpected strength from COVID-19 lockdowns, companies scrambled to find enough workers to keep up with customer orders.

The winter holiday shopping period, led by Christmas shopping, is the busiest time of year for online and brick-and-mortar retailers, some of which have already announced discount events to entice consumers planning to shop early for gifts.

The consulting firm Deloitte forecasts U.S. retail sales will increase 2.3% to 3.3% between November and January and reach a total of $1.59 trillion. EY-Parthenon, the consulting arm of Ernst & Young, forecasts a similar 3% jump in sales during the traditional November-December period.

However, EY Parthenon expects price increases due to inflation to account for a big chunk of that growth, saying real volume sales will only rise 0.5% year-over-year.

Online sales, a growing segment of retail, is expected to increase 8.4% and reach a record $240.8 billion, according to Adobe, which tracks e-commerce transactions.

“At the moment, retailers appear optimistic for a strong holiday shopping season, which is being reflected in the hiring plans of major retailers and warehouses,” said Andy Challenger, senior vice president at the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Overall, U.S. retailers are expected to add 520,000 new jobs in the final quarter of this year compared to 564,200 in 2023, according to a report released last month by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The firm, which analyzes non-seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, says that’s more than the 509,300 seasonal jobs retailers added in 2022. But it represents the second-lowest total since 2009.

Generally, the labor market has gradually lost momentum since the Federal Reserve hiked its benchmark interest rate numerous times in 2022 and 2023 to combat high inflation. Last month, the Fed cut its key rate for the first time in more than four years. The move reflected its new focus on bolstering the job market.

The retail industry nevertheless may encounter challenges filling openings in the coming weeks and months “due to the demands of the job and pay,” Challenger said.

To scoop up employees, companies like Macy’s and JCPenney as well as sporting goods stores Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s are recruiting workers through nationwide hiring events. JCPenney plans to hire more than 10,000 store associates, roughly the same as last year. Macy’s said it would offer on-the-spot interviews during its first event, which took place last week in its stores and warehouses. The company plans to hold three more events this year.

“We are finding strong application flow,” Macy’s said, adding that nearly a third of its recent hires were people who had worked at the company before.

Amid the growth in online shopping, the delivery giant UPS said it planned to hire 125,000 seasonal workers for the holiday rush, up from 100,000 last year.

Radial, an e-commerce company that powers deliveries for brands like Calvin Klein and Express, said it intended to hire fewer people but also planned to scale its staff based on real-time demand. That approach allows the company to meet customers’ needs “without overcommitting,” said Billy Peterson, a senior vice president at Radial.

On the buyer side, consumers have been resilient with their spending while also showing signs of stress, with credit-card debt rising and savings rates falling, trends that could weigh on spending in future months.

Retail sales ticked up from July to August, after jumping the most in a year and a half the previous month. At the same time, consumers have been more prudent about their purchases and pushing back against high prices by trading down to store brands or seeking out deals for products.

However, holiday shoppers could see even higher prices on products if a port workers’ strike that has shut down all the major dockyards on the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. and the Gulf coast persists for more than a month.