Research & Trends: The Holiday Workforce Challenge

By Nikki Baird, Retail Systems Research

The merchandise has (mostly) been ordered and much of it is already on the way to stores. Some economists are probably already on the record for whether this holiday season will be good or bad. And, retailers themselves are already poring over the ups and downs of the first half of 2011 to see if they can find any trends that will help them plan for how the holiday spending season will shape up.

That plan often forms the basis for the labor needs to support holiday traffic in stores. With hiring times, on-boarding requirements — and most importantly — training time needed, retailers have to start planning their holiday workforce sooner rather than later.