Hiring this past holiday season was up 29 percent in the retail sector, according to the latest Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment numbers.
Challenger Gray found there was a net gain of 646,300 jobs between October and December, up from the 501,400 reported a year earlier.
But analysts said it”™s unlikely the retail trade really saw marked improvement in hiring.
“If you look at hiring from say 1999, when we hired 849,000, until 2010, when we hired 646,000, it all depends on what you frame it around,” said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of New York City-based Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a national retail consulting and investment banking firm. “In 1999, you”™re at 849,000. In 2000, you”™re at 788,000. With all of the new stores we”™ve built in ensuing years”¦ we”™ve had double the number of stores.”
A MasterCard Advisors”™ SpendingPulse Report indicated holiday sales increased by 5.5 percent from last year.
December sales were particularly strong in categories including: autos, furniture, health and gas, according to TD Economics, a subsidiary of TD Bank Financial Group.
Challenger Gray reported retail employment grew by 181,900 last month.
“It turns out the additional hiring was warranted, as retailers experienced their best holiday sales season in several years,” John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said in the report. “It is too soon to say that the consumer is back, but the level of holiday spending certainly suggests that optimism is on the rise.”
Challenger said “there are no hard numbers to confirm continued gains in holiday hiring in 2011,” but that retailers could retain some temporary, seasonal workers on a permanent basis if consumer spending power continues.
Last year, after adding 501,400 seasonal workers, retail employment fell by 737,500 in January and February, Challenger Gray reported.
“What I believe is living standards will never be the same and everybody is trading down on jobs,” Davidowitz said. “New entrants to the labor force are trading down and I don”™t blame them. I think they”™re wise to get a job, but they”™re getting a job for less money, less hours and less opportunity. If you look at the latest employment numbers ”¦ hundreds dropped out of the labor force. It depends on how you look at the numbers. I don”™t think retail hiring is strong at all giving the number of stores that have opened.”
But for property owners and commercial brokers struggling to fill vacant space after the bankruptcies of big names such as Fortunoff, Linens ”˜n Things and Filene”™s Basement, sometimes any light at the end of the tunnel is better than no light at all.
Finding new matches for unused space often takes identifying adaptive markets.
Dick”™s Sporting Goods Inc., for instance, has experienced rapid expansion and will create hundreds of jobs when it opens a string of stores along the eastern seaboard.
As of July 31, 2010, Dick”™s Sporting Goods operated 425 stores in 42 states, leasing about 23.7 million square feet.
The Danbury Fair Mall in secured the sporting goods giant as a tenant to partially fill 50,000 square feet in the former Filene”™s store.
A 55,000-square-foot Dick”™s Sporting Goods is scheduled to open this spring in the former Fortunoff building on Bloomingdale Avenue in White Plains.
The sporting goods retailer also committed to opening a location at Forest City Ratner”™s mixed-use development Ridge Hill in Yonkers.
“If you look at what”™s happened in the sporting goods business, a number have gone broke, but you have some survivors like Modell”™s (and Dick”™s Sporting Goods),” Davidowitz said.
Modell”™s operates six stores in Westchester County and a store in Stamford.
