Although extra employees are usually hired during peak shopping seasons to meet high demand, this year, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF) in the United States, hiring is expected to be minimal.

According to the organization, a sharp drop in hiring is expected this year during the holiday season compared to last year, the figures They indicate that there will be between 265,000 and 365,000, compared to 442,000 in 2024, representing a 40% drop. In this regard, Mark Mathews, an economist at the NRF, commented that this year, despite sales surprisingly soaring on peak shopping days like Black Friday and Cyber ??Monday, retailers are taking a more cautious approach to hiring for the last month of the year.

“I think the uncertainty we’ve seen in the economy and in the retail business throughout the year has led some retailers to hold back a little when it comes to making some of these hiring decisions, because this is not a normal year from a historical perspective,” Mathews said.

While an analysis developed and published by Adobe Analytics highlights that holiday sales increased between 4% and 7% compared to last year, this does not mean there are more shoppers. According to Salesforce, this increase in sales indicates higher prices; in other words, shoppers are paying more while buying less. This explains why they require fewer employees to serve customers.

Although data from the Department of Labor indicates an increase of 70,000 retail workers this year, this only represents a 0.5% increase. Furthermore, the trend among chains like Walmart and Target is that they are offering more permanent hours to their current employees and decreasing their seasonal hiring.

One A Challenger Gray and Christmas survey revealed that by the end of this year, seasonal hiring has fallen to its lowest levels.even more than those recorded during the Great Recession of 2009 or the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this regard, Andy Challenger, senior vice president of the firm, highlighted that “we have been observing a fairly steady slowdown in the labor market for a year and a half or two years now,” he said.

Challenger points to a factor that cannot be hidden or ignored: the automation of many companies this year. Labor is becoming less and less necessary, and while this is happening, the number of seasonal job searches has skyrocketed in the last two years.

For Cory Stahle, senior economist at Indeed, “what we are observing in this temporary hiring market clearly reflects what we are observing in the labor market in general: the market has cooled down, and therefore there are now fewer opportunities than a few years ago,” he mentioned.

The most important question then would be: can this situation be reversed? Like consumers, businesses are also facing high inflation coupled with high tariffs. Although retailers have been conservative about hiring in this first week of December, the trend may reverse as the days go by and sales continue to increase.