Retailers shed jobs in November, heading into an uncertain holiday season.
Department stores took the deepest cuts, eliminating a seasonally adjusted 19,400 positions since October to employ 926,500, according to the Labor Department’s monthly job update on Friday.
Apparel and accessories stores shed 5,600 positions to employ 1.1 million.
“It looks like seasonal hiring was softer this year in November, as the ramp-up for Christmas was muted,” said Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at banking company Santander.
The retail sector overall cut 38,000 jobs since October while the number of temp jobs also declined by 14,000, Stanley said.
“An argument can be made that these shortfalls are indicative of fundamental weakness, but the reality is that most of these jobs that are typically added this time of year are explicitly temporary,” the economist said. “So, every job ‘lost’ on a seasonally adjusted basis in November — and possibly December — should be ‘added’ back in January and/or February, when seasonal layoffs are smaller than normal.”
Still, the fact that retailers have pulled back on seasonal help speaks to broader changes in the market, including the tepid outlook of the holiday season and continued increases in online shopping.
The retail job cuts came in a month that overall showed stronger-than-expected employment growth.
Non-farm payrolls expanded by 199,000 in November, ahead of the 172,500 increase economists projected on average, according to FactSet. The unemployment rate dipped down to 3.7 percent, better than the expectations of economists, who were looking for the rate to hold steady at 3.9 percent.
Employment was helped along by the return of nearly 50,000 striking workers, reflecting labor contract agreements covering both actors in Hollywood and auto workers in Detroit.
All together, Stanley said: “The data soundly refute the idea that the labor market is rapidly losing altitude. Rather, it continues to glide gradually back to normal… Controlling for the strike effect, the November gains were about 150,000 for total employment.”
That would put job gains for the month at about the rate traditionally seen as necessary to keep up with U.S. population growth.
