With Christmas fast approaching, Molly Oswaks has checked out stores in the Grove shopping center, boutiques in Larchmont Village and shops along 3rd Street. All across Southern California and the country, the search is on -- not for the perfect gift but for holiday jobs.
And the news isn't good with financial uncertainty in the air.
A sophomore at New York University from Hancock Park, Oswaks took this semester off and started looking for job openings in September. She figured holiday work would net her some extra cash and bolster her resume without interfering with school, which she returns to in January. But no luck so far.
"I've been, for the past month, going into store after store, and no one's hiring," Oswaks, 19, said. "It's really difficult."
Every year, department stores, specialty shops and other retailers hire extra employees for the holidays. Besides helping shoppers look for gifts, seasonal workers ring up purchases, hang store decorations and restock merchandise.
But this will be no ordinary holiday season. Fearing a bleak Christmas, retailers are slashing prices, extending store hours and yes, scaling back on holiday hires.
At a Guess store in Pasadena, managers are planning to hire 10 to 15 holiday employees this year, about 25% fewer than last year, co-manager Eric Varela said.
"We start panicking when we know we're not making the money we're supposed to be making," Varela, 29, said. "It's like a roller-coaster ride here. We really don't know what to expect."
Wonhee Lee, owner of Mobius, a designer clothing and toy shop in Koreatown, said he might not hire any holiday workers if business doesn't improve. Last year he added three part-time workers during the holidays.
"This year we'll probably just keep what we have now unless things pick up in November, but I kind of doubt it," Lee, 36, said. "Our goal is just to stay afloat this year and to cut down on costs as much as possible. And that includes workers."
A recent survey of more than 1,000 managers responsible for hiring hourly workers found that each manager planned on hiring an average of 3.7 seasonal employees this year, roughly 33% less than the 5.6 workers they hired during last year's holiday period.
And 57% said they didn't plan on making any seasonal hires this year, an increase of 8 percentage points from 2007, according to the survey by SnagAJob.com, a website for hourly jobs. Respondents cited smaller budgets and fewer expected holiday shoppers as reasons for cutting back; many said current employees would assume the additional workload instead.
