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Trends in retail trade holiday employment buildups and layoffs
November 17, 2025
The winter holiday season affects employment in several retail industries each year. Among the nine retail trade industries, five typically experience employment buildups in October, November, and December, and layoffs in January and February. Employment in these industries increased by 492,000 during October, November, and December 2024, a slightly stronger holiday buildup than in 2023. The subsequent holiday layoff in January and February was smaller than the layoff in 2024, with retailers retaining 29,000 seasonal employees in 2025, compared with 4,000 in 2024.
Holiday buildup and layoff in retail trade employment in selected industries, 2018–2025
Buildup-layoff year
Total holiday buildup
Total layoff
Net change after buildup and layoff
2018–2019
560,000
693,000
-133,000
2019–2020
625,000
665,000
-40,000
2020–2021
634,000
507,000
127,000
2021–2022
602,000
434,000
168,000
2022–2023
454,000
402,000
52,000
2023–2024
478,000
474,000
4,000
2024–2025
492,000
463,000
29,000
Note: Data are not seasonally adjusted. These data are totals for five retail trade industries: Furniture, home furnishings, electronics, and appliance retailers; General merchandise retailers; Health and personal care retailers; Clothing, clothing accessories, shoe, and jewelry retailers; and Sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and miscellaneous retailers. Holiday buildup data are for October, November, and December. Holiday layoff data are for the following January and February.
Retailers hired 560,000 seasonal employees during the holiday buildup in 2018 and 625,000 in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 recession. During the respective holiday layoffs in January and February, retailers laid off 133,000 more employees than they hired during the buildup in 2018 and 40,000 more than the 2019 buildup. (Pandemic-related job losses in retail trade mostly occurred in April 2020.)
During the next two holiday seasons (2020–2022), holiday hiring remained steady, with retailers hiring 634,000 and 602,000 seasonal employees in 2020 and 2021, respectively. However, the layoffs that followed marked a shift in trend as retailers began retaining seasonal employees. Retailers retained 127,000 seasonal employees in 2021 and 168,000 in 2022.
In the most recent three holiday seasons (2022–2025), trends in both holiday buildups and layoffs shifted. During the holiday buildups in 2022–2024, retailers added an average of 475,000 seasonal employees, below the average buildup of 605,000 employees in 2018–2021. Although retailers continued to retain seasonal employees, the layoffs edged closer to the buildups. In 2023–2025, retailers retained an average of 28,000 employees, below the average of 148,000 in 2021 and 2022.
Data are from the Current Employment Statistics program and are not seasonally adjusted. While the retail trade sector comprises nine industries, this TED focuses on the five industries that hire seasonal employees to meet holiday demand:
Furniture, home furnishings, electronics, and appliance retailers
General merchandise retailers
Health and personal care retailers
Clothing, clothing accessories, shoe, and jewelry retailers
Sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and miscellaneous retailers
Employment in these industries accounted for an average of 50.7 percent of overall retail trade employment from September 2018 to February 2025.
United States Department of Labor
