Americans are poised to spend lavishly stuff stockings and shopping carts while the retailers who sell those stockings have quietly decided they can survive the chaos with skeleton crews—literally the fewest seasonal hires in more than a decade.
Economists are calling it the Grinch’s revenge: consumers are ready to spend like it’s 2019, yet the cash registers will ring like church bells, but the poor souls hoping to earn a little extra “present money” by scanning those gifts are finding the “Now Hiring” signs have been replaced with polite notes reading “Good luck out there.”
For the first time in years, current employees at big-box stores may actually get all know each other’s names, because there won’t be a fresh battalion of wide-eyed temps asking where the bathroom is every twelve minutes.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a firm that sounds like it lays people off for fun, reported that announced seasonal hiring plans through October were the lowest since it started keeping score in 2012.
The National Retail Federation, normally the cheerleader of holiday excess, admitted on a recent press call that retailers might add only 265,000 to 365,000 seasonal workers—down from 442,000 last year and the feeblest showing in over fifteen years.
Meanwhile, job seekers are treating seasonal postings like the last helicopter out of Saigon. Indeed’s data shows applications for holiday gigs jumped 27% from a year ago.
Unfortunately, the actual number of openings rose a limp 2.7%, still trailing pre-pandemic levels by a country mile.
Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, summed it up with the enthusiasm of a man reading funeral arrangements: “There are clearly just a lot fewer opportunities overall.”
Retail, he added, has “just really pulled back,” which is economist-speak for “retailers looked at the budget and said nah.”
Federal data for September showed the economy added 119,000 jobs—mostly in healthcare and margarita-slinging—while retail yawned and added approximately none.
Amazon, never one to miss a trend, announced major cuts shortly after that report, proving once again that two-day shipping is sacred but two extra cashiers in aisle seven is negotiable.
Target has gone radio silent on its hiring numbers, mastering the art of answering questions by not answering them.
Walmart declared it will simply hand extra holiday hours to existing associates because, in their words, “it’s worked very well for us” and “feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.” One suspects the feedback form only had two boxes: “Great” and “I still have a job.”
Current employees, suddenly staring at 50-hour weeks and double shifts, were reportedly “overwhelmed” in an entirely different sense.
Teenagers who planned to fund their Fortnite habits by folding sweaters for minimum wage are now reconsidering career paths that involve the phrase “Want to supersize that?”
And somewhere, an elf just got laid off from the workshop for the first time since the Great Depression.
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