Looking For A Job? Good Thing The Holidays Are Approaching

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With the economy and unemployment rate in the gutter, many people see the holidays as their answer to find work. From our talks with marketing retail consultant Bob Antall, holidays are a great opportunity for people to find work in holiday-specific stores. Stephanie Clifford of The New York Times discusses this issue further in her article Hope Rising, Stores Hire For Holidays:

Even with a turbulent economy, leading retailers say they expect to hire more, or at least as many, holiday workers as last year, when temporary hiring for Christmas grew nearly 50 percent over recession lows.

While the numbers are not eye-popping — Kohl’s, for example, said Tuesday it would hire 40,000 people, up 5 percent from last year — the upbeat plans come against a backdrop of poor growth in permanent jobs, including in the retail sector.

The main reason for the holiday optimism is that people keep shopping. Forecasts issued so far are predicting seasonal sales increases in the range of 2 percent to 3 percent.

“We expect additional hiring this year given the continued sales growth in our business — both in-store and online,” Terry Lundgren, Macy’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement last week. Macy’s said it would hire around 78,000 temporary workers, a 4 percent increase from last year.

J. C. Penney said it would hire 35,000 people, up from 30,000, while Target, which hired 92,000 holiday workers last year, expects that number to be slightly higher this year. Saks Fifth Avenue says it would hire about the same number as last year, and a Nordstrom spokesman, Colin Johnson, while declining to discuss specifics, said in an e-mail, “If we’re able to continue to build on our momentum we could have more holiday help this year.”

Read more at The New York Times