It’s holiday hiring season, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employers will add only about 410,000 jobs this holiday season. That’s not much higher than the 324,900 workers added during the holidays in 2008 when there was a recession.
What’s more, this year’s projected number is lower than in 2022, when 519,300 jobs were added — which itself was a 26% decline from 2021.
The currently anticipated low number is attributed to increased labor costs and lacking consumer confidence. “We have never gone this far into September and not had big hiring predictions from retailers,” Andrew Challenger, senior vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, in a Reuters story. “It’s really surprising.”
To keep reading, click here: Why Will Holiday Hiring Be Tough This Year?
I can understand the lower amount of seasonal hiring especially when most of these seasonal jobs are retail sales positions –low-skills jobs. Nothing wrong with these jobs, but some companies like Walmart raised the minimum starting wage across the nation to $15/hour, so they are going to only hire the minimum amount of employees needed for the holiday season. The higher the minimum wage the lower the number of staff going to be hired.