Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Hiring for the holidays

Although retailers are battling lukewarm fall sales, they're approaching this holiday season with high hopes and plans to hire seasonal workers in numbers that are on par with last year's hiring pace.

Sherry London, a manager at Indulge Fashions of Las Vegas, said the stores have already begun hiring for the holiday season. Indulge Fashions is an upscale women's retailer with locations at Fashion Show mall and Desert Passage at the Aladdin hotel and casino.

"Oh, that's our business. We are in our season right now," London said.

She said during other times of the year both stores employ about 15 workers, but for the holiday season the store plans to hire seven more.

Discount retailer Target is also in its holiday hiring mode. Aimee Sands, a spokeswoman for Target Stores, said the company has begun to add to the ranks of its 275,000 employees at its 1,313 stores.

"For the holiday season in terms of hiring, we're doing very similar hiring as we have for the past couple of years. We plan to hire 50,000 to 80,000 new team members. That translates roughly to 50 to 80 new hires per store," Sands said.

There are 11 Target stores throughout the Las Vegas Valley.

According to local research firm Applied Analysis' third-quarter report on the retail market, as of August 2004 retail employment for the Las Vegas Valley grew by 5.6 percent, or 8,600 jobs, over the 12 proceeding months. The firm said retail employment in the Las Vegas Valley has remained strong as a result.

However, U.S. retailers experienced sluggish growth in September overall, which is the result of hurricanes in the Southeast, warmer than normal weather and high energy costs. They experienced the slowest gain in 15 months with 2.4 percent same store sales growth in September, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. That's compared with a 5.9 percent gain last year.

The National Retail Federation is anticipating 4.5 percent sales growth for this holiday season, with projected holiday spending at $219.9 billion. What that means is this year's season will be strong but not spectacular and this year's hiring will reflect that, Patrice Duker, an ICSC spokeswoman, said.

"We're expecting it to be a good holiday season. We expect hiring to be the same pace as last year. It will probably be moderate," Duker said.

She said although sales have been less than ideal, retailers will probably still hire in such a way that stores are prepared for crowds willing to spend money this holiday season.

"Because of the importance of the season for a retailer, those two months (November and December) make up 25 percent of all of their sales (for the year)," Duker said.

Duker said higher-end stores, such as Nordstrom Inc., have experienced higher growth this year compared with other retailers.

Same-store sales for Nordstrom increased by 6.2 percent in September. Nordstrom spokeswoman Deniz Anders, said the company plans to hire the same number of workers as last year.

"We probably start hiring a little sooner than some retailers. We have our women's and children's half-yearly sale in the middle of November. We start hiring for that in October. We keep those people on through the holiday," Anders said.

Nordstrom Inc. has one Nordstrom store at Fashion Show mall on the Las Vegas Strip and a Nordstrom Rack, the company's discount store, on South Eastern Avenue.

Anders said although such factors as high energy costs and uncertainty about the election could hurt holiday sales for retailers, they're optimistic about the season.

"The season looks good, retailers' inventories look good. They have good offerings this holiday season. For hiring, those factors play into how aggressive retailers want to hire," Duker said.

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