A Brief History Of Holiday Hiring And Firing

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just tweeted a presentation incorporating the latest jobs data.

One of the slides takes a look at retail hiring buildup ahead of the holidays and the subsequent layoffs.

From the BLS: "The October-to-December holiday retail hiring buildup (a 9.1 percent employment increase, not seasonally adjusted) was the strongest since 2007. This stronger-than-average buildup, however, was followed by a below average layoff in January (70.6 percent of the seasonal buildup), which resulted in a seasonally adjusted gain in January."

It's interesting to see how much they drop off in January.