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 will 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 hiring.Macy’s said it will 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.The holiday shopping period 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 between 2.3% to 3.3% during the November to January timeframe 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, it says price increases due to inflation are likely to account for a big chunk of that growth, noting 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 $2...