Economic uncertainty forcing caution on seasonal hiring

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - Economic uncertainty may be forcing retailers to pull back plans for hiring seasonal workers. Overall holiday hires could be much lower than last year and as low as we've seen them in 16 years, according to one forecast.

"This is absolutely hitting Americans in the pocketbook," University of Central Oklahoma Dept. of Economics Chair and associate professor Dr. Travis Roach said.

That, as the holiday season draws closer. Roach is talking about seasonal hiring, which is forecasted to take a hit this year.

"Are you able to realistically bring on a new employee when your future, the holiday sales, everything that's going on in this economy, is that uncertain?" he said.

The job openings and labor turnover survey (JOLTS) from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis shows retail hires are down tens of thousands from the beginning of this year. A forecast from job placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas has them dropping in the final three months of this year to the lowest we've seen since 2009, which was a recession year.

Uncertainty being a key factor this year, Roach points to President Donald Trump's most recent threat, which was a 100 percent tariff on China on top of what is already in place.

"If you're a business owner, you have to take that seriously," he said.

Amazon appears not to be making any downward adjustments, however. They've announced plans to hire 250,000 seasonal workers this year, though that is the same as last year. About 3,500 of them will be in Oklahoma.

In the Associated Press report, they said companies like Bath & Body Works plan to hire fewer than normal. In that same report, American Christmas LLC., which does holiday installations on commercial properties like the Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall, said they were hiring less people and ramping up recruitment late in an effort to offset their tariff bill. They said they expect that to be double from last year. Target, UPS, and Macy's are staying quiet about their hiring goals in a change from years past. Roach called the situation stagnant right now.

"We're in a very low, higher, low fire environment, so, again, stagnant," he said. "We're not getting the usual churn that we expect of a vibrant, dynamic economy and that alone is going to cause failures in profit expectations, failures in spending."