More people are looking for seasonal work this year. So far, it's hard to find

This week’s data deluge from the labor market has turned in a solid (though not spectacular) report card thus far: Hires, quits, and layoffs haven’t changed much, and unemployment claims ticked down.

However, seasonal work is struggling to keep up. According to new data out today from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, announcements of seasonal hiring plans are muted so far this year — down 23% from this time last year.

Although it may seem early to think about holiday hiring, Cory Stahle, a senior economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab, said it’s really not.

“We do start seeing employers ramping up seasonal hiring in August and in September,” Stahle said.

He said that according to postings on Indeed, August was a strong month for seasonal jobs. “But what's interesting is we moved into September, and it kind of came down more in line with what we saw in 2025,” he said.

Meanwhile, the number of people who are looking for seasonal work is rising.

“We're seeing that very clearly over the last two or three years,” Stahle said, “the number of job seekers looking for these types of jobs have continued to grow, but the job postings, at best, have remained within a range around the previous year.”

It’s still early to know how this holiday season will go, but David Swartz, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said that there are some early indications that hiring in retail might be slower.

“Retailers are operating more efficiently than they used to, and using more technology,” Swartz said. “So, they are operating their stores on a full-time basis with fewer people — and that would also include the holiday period when they'd hire fewer temporary workers than they had in past years, too.”

This year, retailers also acutely aware of the financial stress so many people are feeling.

“I think there's a lot of concern about gas prices affecting consumer spending, and how that may affect the holiday season, as well as general inflation,” Swartz said.

He said that’s likely part of why fewer retailers have announced big holiday hiring plans so far — their expectations are low for this year.

“But that's also been the case for the last couple years,” he said, “and the holiday sales turned out to be stronger than expected.”

He said some retailers may be holding off on hiring for now and waiting to see if it looks like that’s happening again.