by calculated risk October 22, 2024 11:46:00 AM
I track seasonal retail employment each year for tips on holiday retail sales. At the bottom of this post, there is a graph showing the correlation between seasonal employment and holiday retail sales in October.
Below is a graph of retail employment over the past several years, based on BLS employment reports.
Click on the graph to see a larger image.
This chart shows the historical number of net retail jobs added in October, November, and December by year.
Retailers hired 574,000 seasonal workers last year (using BLS data, not seasonally adjusted) and hired 156,000 seasonal workers last October.
Note that in the early ’90s, retailers began hiring seasonal workers earlier, continuing the trend of hiring them earlier.
The following scatterplot, from 2005 to 2023, compares October retail employment and real retail sales growth (adjusted for inflation) (Q4 vs. QoQ).
October hiring is generally a pretty good indicator of seasonal sales. The R-squared for this small sample is 0.72. Note: This uses Q4 retail sales and does not include autos, gas, or restaurants.
Note: The top right dot – 2020, when real retail sales increased more than 10% year-over-year – saw a surge in retail sales due to spending on goods due to the pandemic (while services spending was weak).
When the October jobs report is released on Friday, Nov. 1, we’ll take a look at retail seasonal hiring for a hint at what retailers are actually expecting for the holiday season. .
