Seasonal Retail Hiring Is at a 17-Year Low — and It Did Not Move to Warehousing
Measured from BLS payrolls as a share of the October base, the 2025 season was the second weakest since 1939, behind only 2008. And warehousing seasonal hiring fell harder, not softer, so the jobs did not move.
Yes, and measured rather than forecast. BLS payrolls show 362,600 seasonal retail jobs added in the 2025 season against 398,300 in 2024. As a share of the October employment base — the only comparison that holds across 87 seasons, since retail has tripled in size since 1939 — that is 2.35%, the second-weakest on record behind the 1.89% of 2008.
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About the Author
Sujit KarkiFinance Researcher & Market Analyst
Independent finance researcher and market analyst with expertise in macroeconomics, equity markets, and personal finance. I help regular investors make better-informed decisions through rigorous, data-driven analysis.
Seasonal hiring headlines this year lean gloomy, and when I checked them against payroll data they were right — more right than the figure being quoted, in fact. What did not survive the check was the reassuring half of the story: that the jobs moved to warehouses rather than disappearing. Here is what the numbers actually show, and where the seasonal money still is.
Key Takeaways
The widely quoted 16-year-low figure counts announced hiring plans; payroll data puts the last weaker season 17 years back, in 2008.
Measured as a share of the October base — the only fair comparison across 87 seasons — 2025 is the second-weakest since 1939, behind only 2008.
Warehousing seasonal hiring fell 89% from its 2020 peak against retail's 28% — the jobs did not shift to logistics, they went away.
A W-2 seasonal job has taxes withheld automatically; a 1099 gig does not, and you owe self-employment tax on top of income tax.
Seasonal income can be stacked with an existing side hustle or gig work to meaningfully extend the earning window.
The restored $20,000/200-transaction 1099-K threshold changes what gets reported, not what's actually taxable.
The hiring slowdown
Seasonal retail hiring has fallen for years, and unlike most coverage of this I am going to use payroll counts rather than hiring forecasts. The measured series runs from a 2007 peak of 633,000 jobs added to 363,000 in 2025 — a fall of 43%, and as a share of the workforce it is the second-weakest season since 1939.
The usual explanation is that retailers use existing staff more efficiently, automation absorbs some of the load, and the seasonal surge has moved from the storefront into the warehouse. The first two are plausible and I cannot test them here. The third is testable, and it turns out to be wrong.
The jobs did not move — I checked
I believed this when I first wrote it, and then I measured it, and it is not true.
The "16-year low" figure everyone repeats — this post included — comes from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm that counts announced hiring plans. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts people actually on payrolls. So I pulled the payroll series and computed seasonal hiring directly as the rise from October to the holiday peak, on the not-seasonally-adjusted series. The script is published.
The headline claim holds, and on the right measure it is understated. The 2025 season added 362,600 retail jobs.
Raw job counts are the wrong way to rank this, though, and it is worth saying why: retail employed 5.7 million people in 1962 and 15.4 million in 2025. Ranking absolute hiring across eighty-seven seasons compares a different-sized industry with itself, and by that measure 2025 looks middling — eleventh weakest, behind 1974, 1981 and the war years.
Measured as a share of the October base, which is the only comparison that survives across that much change:
Season
Share of October base
Jobs added
2008
1.89%
285,500
2025
2.35%
362,600
2022
2.40%
373,000
1981
2.52%
263,100
2023
2.56%
397,900
2024
2.58%
398,300
2021
2.83%
434,400
2025 is the second-weakest holiday hiring season since 1939 — 87 seasons — beaten only by the winter of the financial crisis. Both measures agree on the part that matters most: the last season weaker than 2025 was 2008, seventeen years ago.
But the "it moved to warehousing" explanation does not survive contact with the data
This is the part I had wrong. Run the identical calculation on warehousing and storage:
Season
Seasonal warehousing jobs added
2020
79,700
2021
66,800
2022
500
2023
20,500
2024
23,400
2025
8,800
Warehousing seasonal hiring did not absorb the retail decline. It collapsed harder — down about 89% from its 2020 peak, against retail's 28% fall over the same span. Both are shrinking, and warehousing is shrinking faster.
So the comforting story — that the jobs moved rather than disappeared — is not supported. What the payroll data shows is a genuine, broad contraction in temporary holiday work across both the storefront and the fulfilment centre. That is a worse finding than the one this post originally carried, and it changes the advice: do not assume a fulfilment centre near you is quietly hiring the people the mall no longer needs.
Large fulfillment operators do still advertise competitive seasonal starting pay, and pay floors in that space remain meaningfully above minimum wage — the roles that exist are worth having. There are simply fewer of them being added each season, not more.
Pro Tip
It is still worth applying to fulfillment centres directly — the pay often beats a retail floor role, and the roles that exist are real. Just do not go in expecting the mall's missing headcount to be waiting there. On the payroll numbers it is not.
W-2 vs. 1099 seasonal work
This distinction matters more at tax time than most seasonal workers realize. A W-2 seasonal job — most traditional retail and warehouse roles — has income tax and payroll (Social Security/Medicare) tax withheld automatically by the employer, the same as any regular job.
A 1099 seasonal gig — deliveries, some app-based warehouse or fulfillment work, independent contract roles — has nothing withheld. You're responsible for both income tax and the full 15.3% self-employment tax, and if you don't set money aside as you earn it, that bill arrives all at once the following spring.
That's before income tax on top — the self-employment tax alone is a meaningful chunk most first-time gig workers don't plan for.
Stacking a seasonal gig with something else
Seasonal roles are, by definition, temporary — but the income window doesn't have to be limited to one gig. Pairing a seasonal W-2 shift with flexible gig work, or running an existing side hustle alongside it, can meaningfully extend both the hours available and the total take for the season, especially since holiday demand tends to lift multiple types of gig work at once, not just one category.
Plan your seasonal income
Interactive · seasonal work income
What a seasonal gig actually pays out
Hourly wage$18/hr
Hours per week25
Weeks worked8
Gross seasonal income: $0
Gross pay (before income tax withholding)$3,600
W-2 pay still has income tax and payroll tax withheld by the employer — this models the SE-tax-specific gap for 1099 income. Not a substitute for a real tax estimate.
Look beyond traditional retail listings. Warehousing and logistics operators are often hiring in higher volume and at better pay than the mall storefront.
If any part of your seasonal income is 1099, set aside roughly 20–25% for taxes as you earn it, not at tax time.
Understand the restored 1099-K threshold ($20,000 and 200 transactions). It changes what gets reported to you on a form — it does not change what's actually taxable, which is all your income regardless of reporting thresholds.
Stack seasonal work with an existing side hustle if your schedule allows it — see my guide to starting a side hustle for structure ideas.
Treat seasonal earnings as a chance to build, not just spend — even a modest chunk redirected to savings compounds the same way any other income does.
Yes, and measured rather than forecast. BLS payrolls show 362,600 seasonal retail jobs added in the 2025 season against 398,300 in 2024. As a share of the October employment base — the only comparison that holds across 87 seasons, since retail has tripled in size since 1939 — that is 2.35%, the second-weakest on record behind the 1.89% of 2008.
Methodology
The measurement. Seasonal hiring is the rise in employment from October to the holiday peak, taken as the larger of November and December, on the not seasonally adjusted payroll series. It is ranked two ways: by raw job count, and by share of the October base. The share is the one to trust across this much history — retail employed 5.7 million in 1962 and 15.4 million in 2025, so an absolute ranking silently flatters the present. Quoting only the count would have made 2025 look eleventh-weakest rather than second. The adjusted series is built specifically to remove this effect and would report roughly zero every year. Series CEU4200000001 (retail trade) and CEU4349300001 (warehousing and storage), all employees, in thousands.
Why this differs from the number in circulation. Challenger, Gray & Christmas counts announced hiring plans; BLS counts people on payrolls. They are different quantities and are not comparable, which is why this post no longer cites one as though it corroborated the other.
Verification. Seasonal hiring must be positive in every complete season — retail employment rises into the holidays in every year on record — so the script refuses to publish if any complete season comes back non-positive. That is the signature of accidentally pulling the seasonally adjusted series, which is the single most likely way to get this wrong.
Why flat files, not the API. The BLS JSON API caps an unregistered caller at 25 requests a day and silently truncates any range beyond ten years. Using it here would have limited the comparison to twenty seasons — which is exactly the mistake that made 2025 look like a twenty-year story rather than an eighty-seven-year one. The flat files at download.bls.gov carry the full history from 1939, have no quota, and come from the same publisher. They are cached locally for a day.
Limits. Retail trade only, and net rather than gross — a store hiring twenty and losing five shows as fifteen. A season counts as complete only once December is published, so the current year is reported separately and never ranked.
Sujit Karki|||8 min read