How the Grinch stole jobs

  • Bryan Corliss / Herald Writer
  • Sunday, November 4, 2001 9:00pm
  • Business

By Bryan Corliss

Herald Writer

A big lump of coal in your pay envelope. That’s what you may be getting if you’re expecting to pick up extra money working for retailers during the holiday rush.

A local labor economist predicts that holiday hiring will be at a level less than a quarter of what it was two years ago, at the peak of the economic boom.

And some area retailers are slashing, not adding, staff in preparation for the holiday season, the owner of one Alderwood-area temporary services agency said.

“We have no problems finding great people right now,” said John Kuntsen, co-owner of Express Personnel Services of Lynnwood. “It’s getting them placed.”

During last year’s Christmas shopping season, a tight labor market forced retailers to offer signing bonuses and premium wages to lure employees. Facing an uncertain outlook for the 2001 holiday season, many stores nationwide are being more conservative about hiring for the critical November and December period.

Retailers who usually start revving up recruiting efforts by mid-September are delaying hiring commitments until they have a better idea of the consumer mind-set following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They’re also postponing the start date for workers and relying more on regular employees.

December is the most wonderful time of the year for retail employment. Department stores and specialty shops traditionally add workers by the score to handle the influx of holiday shoppers.

Over the past three years, total employment among Snohomish County residents has jumped each December by anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 people, said Donna Thompson, a state labor market analyst based in Everett. Much of that is driven by holiday hiring by retailers here and in King County.

Looking just at Snohomish County, retailers added about 900 workers for the month of December in both 1998 and 1999, Thompson said. Last year, with the economy slowing, holiday hiring was down to about 400.

It won’t be anything near that high this year, she said. “You might be, maybe, looking at 200.”

It’s not hard to figure out why, she said. The economy was slowing before Sept. 11, and since then it’s only gotten worse.

The first round of Boeing layoffs will take place Dec. 14. “That’s right in the middle… probably the worst possible time for the holidays,” Thompson said.

Layoffs already are taking place at Goodrich Corp. and the smaller aircraft and parts businesses in the county, she said. And tourism-related businesses also have been battered – for example, a recreational vehicle dealership has closed, she said.

All that will push unemployment up and discretionary spending down.

Retailers already are responding to the downturn by cutting workers, Knutsen said.

Walk into a department store and “there’s nobody to help you anymore,” said Knutsen, whose office is at Alderwood Mall. “There’s nobody roaming the aisles for customer service. They’ve reduced employees.”

He’s never done a lot of business with retailers seeking temporary workers. But “the little bit of retail we’re doing has dramatically dropped off,” Knutsen said.

On a national level, companies such as Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s West already expect to hire fewer helpers because of the decline in business after the attacks and reduced sales forecasts for the holiday season.

“We are trying to look at a crystal ball,” said Richard Donaldson, a spokesman for L.L. Bean, whose hiring plans for the remaining 800 of its expected 4,500 holiday workers are sketchy. Business has improved since the attacks, Donaldson said, but “a few days don’t make for a trend.”

“We are definitely taking recruiting day by day,” he said. “We are taking it right down to the wire.”

Even United Parcel Service, which hired 90,000 workers for its peak season last year, doesn’t know how many workers it will need, according to Paula Fulford, a company spokeswoman.

The dilemma many companies face is that they don’t want to be short-staffed if holiday spending picks up, but they also can’t afford to be overly bullish.

“The challenge this year is getting a read on what the holiday season will be like. Will the consumer come back?” said David Gow, chief executive officer of Ashford.com, a luxury e-commerce site that plans to delay its hiring for 25 or so workers until mid-November, a month later than usual.

Gow continued, “You can’t wait until the last minute to bring in the team, but at the same time you want to commit as late as possible.”

Help is easier to find this year because the national unemployment rate is at 4.9 percent, compared with 3.9 percent a year ago. In Snohomish County, the rate was at 4.8 percent prior to Sept. 11 and has risen since then, Thompson said.

Merchants say they are still recruiting on college campuses, unemployment offices and on the Web, but they just don’t have to work as hard.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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