By Justin Lahart and Jared Mitovich

Every year, hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers take on seasonal jobs during the holidays. This year those jobs look harder to come by.

Queens, N.Y., native Meredith Carbonell, 37 years old, has applied to holiday jobs at Kohl's, Target and other retailers after losing her full-time job last holiday season. So far, she hasn't found any takers, and her savings have begun to dry out.

"I don't want to end up...having no money at all. I don't want to be living paycheck to paycheck," said Carbonell, who lives in her grandmother's house with her mother and 15-year-old son.

The retail and transportation-and-warehousing sectors typically rush to hire as they staff up for the holidays, and let those workers go once the season is over. In the final three months of last year, the two sectors added 912,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department. They then shed 858,000 jobs over January and February.

While the jobs are temporary, they provide an important source of income for low-wage workers, many of whom move from job to job over the rest of the year. And this year, as a low hiring environment has made it harder to break into the job market, more people are looking for holiday jobs to tide them over. Payroll processor ADP on Tuesday said that its measure of employment showed that the economy shed 45,000 private-sector jobs over the four weeks ending Oct. 25.

On jobs site Indeed, the number of job seekers looking for holiday work was 27% higher at the end of September than a year earlier. But the number of job postings from retailers on the site was down by 15% on the year last month.

Some of the companies that do the most holiday hiring have broken from their usual practice of advertising how many holiday workers they plan to hire.

United Parcel Service, for example, said last year that it would hire 125,000 workers in its "holiday hiring spree." This year, it hasn't made an announcement. Also holding off: Macy's, which said in 2024 that it would hire more than 31,500 seasonal workers, and Target, which said last year that it would add 100,000 seasonal jobs. (Both UPS and Target have laid off regular employees this year.)

By the tally of job-placement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, through October this year large companies have announced plans to hire 372,520 seasonal workers. That compares with 660,150 at the same point last year, and is the fewest announced seasonal hires through October since Challenger began tracking them in 2012.

The mismatch between employers' needs and the stepped-up demand for work "sets up this kind of odd balance, where fewer retail job postings are paired with more people wanting those jobs, and that leads to a much more competitive market," said Indeed economist Cory Stahle.

At Portugalia Marketplace in Fall River, Mass., landing a holiday job has never been more competitive.

"We get far more applicants than we've ever gotten before," said Michael Benevides, who runs the specialty Portuguese grocery with his sister and has recently observed an uptick in middle-aged, more-qualified candidates.

Benevides estimates that the grocer nets about 30% of its annual business in November and December. The holidays call for "all hands on deck" -- as Portugalia wrote in a recent seasonal hiring posting for its warehouse that fills online orders. The grocer's staff typically grows from 50 people to 60 near year-end as families shop for holiday groceries and the store hosts more events to attract visitors, such as a Christmas village nativity scene depicting life in the Azores.

One reason for the caution on holiday hiring: Americans' willingness to spend during the holidays is looking iffy. While high-income households might be feeling flush, thanks to a surging stock market, many others are feeling pinched: Only 11% of consumers polled by the University of Michigan last month said they expected their incomes to outpace inflation over the next year.

The Federal Reserve's latest so-called beige book report, which compiles economic anecdotes from the 12 regional Fed banks, said that some businesses were "anxious about the upcoming holiday season." An annual survey from Deloitte found that consumers, on average, expect their spending on gifts and other holiday items to come to $1,595 this year. That compared with $1,778 in last year's survey.

The government shutdown could weigh further on sales. Furloughed government employees aren't getting paid, and many of those who are working aren't getting paychecks, either. Supermarkets and other retailers that sell food are grappling with delays and reductions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, that the shutdown has brought on.

Stephanie Doeler, 33, said that the clientele at her bakeshop in Easton, Md., includes workers who commute into Washington, though she can't tell whether that includes federal government employees. Doeler was worried when the start of October was slower for business than she expected -- but she has come to lean on a dependable crop of customers, many of whom are retirees, even with slower spending.

"They're still going to shop the way they shop," Doeler said.

Doeler hopes for her fourth quarter to net her nearly twice what the shop makes in the first through third quarters. Heading into the holidays, she is working on hiring four extra employees to help with an expected influx of customers seeking scones and other pastries for holiday gifts, celebrations and comfort.

She recently trained a new team member with a main job in the evening who hoped to earn extra cash during the daytime this winter.

"We bake all day, every day," she said.

Write to Justin Lahart at Justin.Lahart@wsj.com and Jared Mitovich at jared.mitovich@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 11, 2025 12:00 ET (17:00 GMT)

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