Lagging economy means fewer seasonal jobs

Jon Pruden used to have a tough time finding a dozen or so extra employees for his six Taste Unlimited stores over the winter holidays.

Pruden's managers would ask employees whether friends or relatives would be willing to work. They usually ended up posting help-wanted ads to fill the positions in the specialty food shops.

This year, Pruden doesn't face that challenge. The owner decided to extend the hours for his existing employees, rather than add those supplemental workers.

As the troubled economy has dragged down sales, many retailers have curtailed hiring for the holiday season, expecting to handle less store traffic and seeking to save the added labor expense.

"We expect, like most, to have a flat to down year," Pruden said. "And we didn't want to bring a bunch of hours onboard if we didn't have to."

In October, the retail industry added 65,900 jobs, said John Challenger, chief executive officer of the Chicago consulting firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That number - based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - was down nearly 20 percent from last October and was the lowest for an October since 1991, Challenger said.

Figures for November aren't in yet, he said, but "it does seem likely that retailers are going to be very cautious about their hiring this season. They know that consumer spending dropped for the first time in 17 years last quarter. They know that they've got to keep costs down."

In Virginia, employers tend to boost their payrolls by about 30,000 to 35,000 additional workers each holiday season, primarily in retail and food service, said William Mezger, chief economist for the Virginia Employment Commission.

Some local caterers, which normally would see a surge in business at holiday time, also have cut back on hiring this year.

"We still do have quite a few groups" planning holiday parties, said Rick Waskey, president of Beach Bully BBQ Catering and Restaurant in Virginia Beach. But several clients, he said, have either dropped or scaled back their events.

Waskey said it was too early to say how much business will be off. But he predicted that he would hire fewer part-time workers. Most tend to be students and teachers who also worked for Beach Bully over the summer.

With the holiday job market shrinking, employers have noticed a surge in the number of candidates looking for work. Pruden said he struggled in previous years to find a qualified manager just for seasonal work in Taste Unlimited's gift fulfillment center, but this year one of the company's contractors who ran its catering events was available for the job.

"It was much easier to find the folks we did plug in this year," he said. "People are coming to us."

Haynes Furniture doesn't do much seasonal hiring, but the company has seen a spike in applications since the summer, particularly for higher-skilled and higher-paying positions, said E.J. Strelitz, chief executive of Haynes, which has five stores in Virginia and North Carolina and owns eight The Dump stores.

The closure of other furniture chains has put many merchandise managers and buyers out of work, he said. "There's a lot of that kind of talent looking for a home these days."

Not all businesses have trimmed holiday help. UPS expects to hire about 340 "driver helpers" and "package handlers" in Hampton Roads - about the same as last year, said Rebecca Treacy-Lenda, a spokeswoman for the delivery company in Atlanta.

The Macy's department store at Greenbrier Mall also has maintained enough holiday employees to cover the extended hours that customers like this time of year, said Robin Katz, the store's manager. "We're looking to accommodate the traffic patterns, and it's very similar to last year."

Even business owners who cut seasonal hires, faced with the unhappy prospect of falling sales, see some benefits from the slowdown. They won't expend time or money on training new workers, Pruden pointed out. And the experienced workers will stay longer in their jobs.

"As an employer," Pruden said, "the silver lining is employees are a little bit more appreciative of what they do have and what you're able to pay them and having a steady paycheck."

Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com