Consumers Keep Spending as Retailers Scale Back Seasonal Hiring

August spending gains highlight resilient demand while 2025 holiday hiring may fall to its lowest level since 2009.

ICSC Focus: strong shopper demand meets leaner, tech-driven retail staffing.

Conversation Starter 

​As our agents head to ICSC, the message is clear: shoppers keep spending, but retailers are tightening labor plans. August personal spending rose 0.6% for a third straight month, while incomes climbed 0.4%. This signals steady consumer confidence, with consumers prioritizing purchases even amid persistent 2.9% core inflation. Conversations will likely focus on rent and property values, new developments, redeployment strategies, and the evolving opportunities in mixed-use spaces.

Hiring announcements remain muted. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a national outplacement and labor-market research firm, projects retail seasonal hiring could drop below 500,000 jobs in Q4 2025, the smallest gain in 16 years, after a 4% decline last year. Transportation and warehousing employers are also expected to hire fewer workers as automation and flexible scheduling reshape operations.

Expect conversations about how resilient consumer demand meets a leaner, tech-driven retail workforce, and what that means for the spaces where people shop, dine, work, play, and gather, from tenants and landlords to developers. This includes the accelerated shift to omni-channel fulfillment within physical stores and the increasing demand for flexible mixed-use layouts.