by Calculated Risk on 9/23/2009 12:30:00 PM

From the WSJ: Holiday Jobs Look Scarce as Pessimism Grips Retail

... About 40% of stores surveyed across a broad swath of retailing ... told the Hay Group, a human resources consulting firm, that they expect to hire between 5% and 25% fewer temporary workers this year than last ...

That's a grimmer outlook than the Hay survey found a year ago, when 29% of retailers said they would be slashing their holiday workforce.
...
A third of retailers in the survey said they expect sales during Christmas to decline 5% to 25% this year. Another third expect sales to remain the same as last year. Researcher Retail Forward estimates last year was the worst selling season in 42 years with sales declining 4.5% in the fourth quarter. It also issued a forecast predicting sales will be flat with last year's weak numbers."

Seasonal retail hiring will be watch closely. Here is a repeat of a graph from a post a couple weeks ago: Seasonal Retail Hiring

Typically retail companies start hiring for the holiday season in October, and really increase hiring in November. This graph shows the historical net retail jobs added for October, November and December by year.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This really shows the collapse in retail hiring in 2008. This also shows how the season has changed over time - back in the '80s, retailers hired mostly in December. Now the peak month is November, and many retailers start hiring seasonal workers in October.

The WSJ article is a little confusing. First they are comparing to last year (with 40% of retailers saying they will hire fewer workers than in 2008). But there is this paragraph:

In a typical Christmas season, the retail sector contributes about 700,000 temporary jobs to the economy. If retailers decrease those numbers by 10% to 20%, that would translate to a potential loss of more than 100,000 jobs this year just when they are most in demand.

The 700,000 number is about right (as shown on the graph), but if retailers hire at the pace of last year, employment will be off 300,000 or so from normal.