Retailers Scale Back Holiday Hiring as Consumers Grow Uneasy

American retailers are set to hire the lowest level of seasonal holiday workers in 15 years.

That’s according to an article Friday (Sept. 15) by Reuters, citing a report by employment service Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CGC) provided exclusively to the news outlet.

The report shows stores planning to add just 410,000 seasonal jobs this year, and have so far announced just 8,000 planned holiday hires. Last year at this time, retailers had already announced 258,201 new positions, CGC said.

“We have never gone this far into September and not had big hiring predictions from retailers,” said Andrew Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas. “It’s really surprising,” he said, adding that it indicates uncertainty and lower seasonal hiring for 2023.

The last time the holiday hiring numbers were this low was during the 2008 holiday season, when that year’s recession limited retailers to 324,900 workers.

Reuters noted that the CGC report didn’t cover all retailers. For example, grocery chain Kroger was not included, and that company has said it would hire “thousands” of seasonal employees for the holidays.

However, as PYMNTS wrote in August, recent earnings reports from retailers could indicate some hesitancy among consumers as the holidays approach, as well-known merchants — Target and Macy’s among them — struggle to pull in sales and beef up their customer bases.

“While overall consumer spending on the rise, albeit unevenly, is undoubtedly good news, these discretionary retailer earnings releases may more accurately reflect that consumers’ attitude towards spending is more subdued,” that report said. 

This pulling back was also on display in PYMNTS’ July “Consumer Inflation Sentiment” report, which showed that consumers predict that inflation will continue into the first quarter of 2025, a sentiment that is in line with the Federal Reserve’s projections.

Meanwhile, the resumption of student loan payments could also have an impact on the holiday shopping season. 

As noted here last week, moving funds to repayments means that money will no longer be available for other important goals, such as reaching financial stability, padding savings accounts or paying bills.

PYMNTS intelligence finds that 46% of consumers with loans who are concerned about repayments anticipate that saving money will become more challenging. In addition, 43% said they were worried about their financial stability, while 36% expressed concerns about paying monthly bills, and 35% were worried about affording everyday expenses.

“This not only affects their ability to build a financial safety net but also has implications for the retail industry, as disposable income is expected to decline during the upcoming holiday season,” PYMNTS wrote.