October Seasonal Hiring vs. Vacation Retail Gross sales

by Calculated Threat on 10/22/2024 11:46:00 AM

Yearly I observe seasonal retail hiring for hints about vacation retail gross sales.  On the backside of this publish is a graph displaying the correlation between October seasonal hiring and vacation retail gross sales.

Here’s a graph of retail hiring for earlier years primarily based on the BLS employment report:

Click on on graph for bigger picture.

This graph reveals the historic web retail jobs added for October, November and December by 12 months.

Retailers employed 574 thousand seasonal staff final 12 months (utilizing BLS information, Not Seasonally Adjusted), and 156 thousand seasonal staff final October.

Be aware that within the early ’90s, retailers began hiring seasonal staff earlier – and the pattern in the direction of hiring earlier has continued.

The next scatter graph is for the years 2005 by way of 2023 and compares October retail hiring with the true improve (inflation adjusted) for retail gross sales (This fall over earlier This fall).

On the whole October hiring is a reasonably good indicator of seasonal gross sales. R-square is 0.72 for this small pattern. Be aware: This makes use of retail gross sales in This fall, and excludes autos, gasoline and eating places. 

NOTE: The dot within the higher proper – with actual Retail gross sales up over 10% YoY is for 2020 – when retail gross sales soared as a result of pandemic spending on items (service spending was smooth).

When the October employment report is launched on Friday, November 1st, I will be taking a look at seasonal retail hiring for hints on what the retailers truly anticipate for the vacation season.