Target, Big-Box Stores Hire Holiday Workers, But Small Businesses Still Feel Pinched

However, in contrast to Big Box stores like Target and Walmart, who have increased hiring for the holidays, small businesses feel as though they are being pinched.

Target is continuing its yearly holiday hiring drive, even as some forecasts say shoppers will likely limit holiday shopping due to inflation concerns. The Minneapolis-based company is looking to hire 100,000 workers for the holidays, which aligns with numbers from the past three years.

According to Reuters, the majority of hires are expected to staff its stores. The company is also hiring workers at distribution centers and other supply chain support locations. In addition to Target, other chains looking to hire for the holiday season, like Bath & Body Works, kept their numbers essentially unchanged from their 2023 seasonal hiring patterns.

According to Investopedia, at the conclusion of their seasonal roles, approximately half of the workers Target hired for the 2023 holiday season were kept on in full-time roles. Over the last several months, Target has made it a point to accentuate the value the company seeks to promote to its customers.

Target, however, is not the only large retail company looking to accentuate its value to consumers as it begins hiring and marketing campaigns with an eye toward the holiday season.

Walmart, which hired 40,000 holiday workers in 2023, told Reuters its plans to stick to the same hiring numbers the chain used last year for the 2024 holiday season. It will start offering holiday deals, as will the home electronics-focused big box store Best Buy, which has exclusive deals for their members set for Sept. 27-29.

The holiday season is important for retailers, and according to Experian Marketing, overall consumer trends from 2023 bode well for companies in 2024. According to its analysis, Cyber Week, the five-day period between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday and the week before Christmas, supplied the highest weekly sales between 2021 and 2023.

Customers have also started returning to stores instead of spending most of their time shopping online. According to Experian Marketing’s analysis, 84% of holiday shopping was done in-store at discount stores, 78% was done in-store at department stores, and 64% was done online for office, electronic, and games stores.

However, in contrast to big-box stores like Target and Walmart, which have increased hiring for the holidays, small businesses feel as though they are being pinched, per a report from Fast Company.

“With the inflationary issues companies are dealing with through the year, it puts on more pressure—businesses are in catch-up mode. Part of the challenge is that a lot of the data put out at the macro level blends companies of all sizes,” Sarah Jordan, chief marketing officer at Constant Contact, told Fast Company. “When you zero in on how that impacts small businesses, despite what you might be seeing in the macro economy, small companies are still feeling the pinch.”

Reports from Affirm and Constant Contact also showed that Americans feel at least as confident in their ability to manage expenses in 2024 as they did in 2023 and that 78% of consumers planned to shop at a new small business in the 2024 holiday season.

“Despite the tones of apprehension and fear, the trends are positive. The fact that they plan to focus on spending at small businesses is really positive,” Jordan said. “That’s a real focus [for consumers], especially after COVID.”