By HALELUYA HADERO

Retailers are ramping up hiring for the holiday season, but fewer seasonal employees are expected to be taken on this year to help customers in stores and assemble online orders in warehouses.

E-commerce giant Amazon said Thursday it will hire 250,000 full, part-time and seasonal workers for the crucial shopping period, rounding out a series of announcements made in recent weeks by the country’s top retailers.

Amazon is hiring the same number of employees it did last year, similar to Bath & Body Works and Target, which said in September it planned to bring in roughly 100,000 seasonal employees and offer current employees the option to work extra hours during the holiday shopping period.

Meanwhile, the department store Kohl’s encouraged people to apply for positions but stayed mum on its plans, mirroring Walmart, which said it’s been hiring store associates throughout the year and will tap into its own staff when needed during the busy season.

Others have indicated they will scale back their holiday hiring. Macy’s said it would add more than 31,500 seasonal positions this year across its Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury stores, as well as its distribution centers. Last year, the company added 38,000.

This year’s demand for seasonal workers comes as economists are watching the U.S. job market for signs of a slowdown. Job openings have come down steadily since peaking at 12.2 million in March 2022. When the economy roared back with unexpected strength from COVID-19 lockdowns, companies scrambled to find enough workers to keep up with customer orders.

The holiday shopping period is the busiest time of year for online and brick-and-mortar retailers, some of which have already announced discount events to entice consumers planning to shop early for gifts.

The consulting firm Deloitte forecasts U.S. retail sales will increase 2.3% to 3.3% between November and January and reach a total of $1.59 trillion. EY-Parthenon, the consulting arm of Ernst & Young, forecasts a similar 3% jump in sales during the traditional November-December period.

However, EY Parthenon expects price increases due to inflation to account for a big chunk of that growth, saying real volume sales will only rise 0.5% year-over-year.

Online sales, a growing segment of retail, is expected to increase 8.4% and reach a record $240.8 billion, according to Adobe, which tracks e-commerce transactions.

“At the moment, retailers appear optimistic for a strong holiday shopping season, which is being reflected in the hiring plans of major retailers and warehouses,” said Andy Challenger, senior vice president at the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

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Overall, U.S. retailers are expected to add 520,000 new jobs in the final quarter of this year compared to 564,200 in 2023, according to a report released last month by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The firm, which analyzes non-seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, says that’s more than the 509,300 seasonal jobs retailers added in 2022. But it represents the second-lowest total since 2009.

Generally, the labor market has gradually lost momentum since the Federal Reserve hiked its benchmark interest rate numerous times in 2022 and 2023 to combat high inflation. Last month, the Fed cut its key rate for the first time in more than four years. The move reflected its new focus on bolstering the job market.

The retail industry nevertheless may encounter challenges filling openings in the coming weeks and months “due to the demands of the job and pay,” Challenger said.

To scoop up employees, companies like Macy’s and JCPenney as well as sporting goods stores Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s are recruiting workers through nationwide hiring events. JCPenney plans to hire more than 10,000 store associates, roughly the same as last year. Macy’s said it would offer on-the-spot interviews during its first event, which took place last week in its stores and warehouses. The company plans to hold three more events this year.

“We are finding strong application flow,” Macy’s said, adding that nearly a third of its recent hires were people who had worked at the company before.

Amid the growth in online shopping, the delivery giant UPS said it planned to hire 125,000 seasonal workers for the holiday rush, up from 100,000 last year.

Radial, an e-commerce company that powers deliveries for brands like Calvin Klein and Express, said it intended to hire fewer people but also planned to scale its staff based on real-time demand. That approach allows the company to meet customers’ needs “without overcommitting,” said Billy Peterson, a senior vice president at Radial.

On the buyer side, consumers have been resilient with their spending while also showing signs of stress, with credit-card debt rising and savings rates falling, trends that could weigh on spending in future months.

Retail sales ticked up from July to August, after jumping the most in a year and a half the previous month. At the same time, consumers have been more prudent about their purchases and pushing back against high prices by trading down to store brands or seeking out deals for products.

However, holiday shoppers could see even higher prices on products if a port workers’ strike that has shut down all the major dockyards on the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. and the Gulf coast persists for more than a month.

The comptroller’s office says some inroads have been made but “far more is needed to be fully prepared for heavy storms.”

Since the news of Mayor Eric Adams federal corruption charges broke, government officials have questioned his ability to lead the city amid the turmoil.

And the city’s Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running against Adams for the mayoral seat in next year’s election, says the administration also can’t lose sight of the fact that hurricane season is underway.

Lander’s office published a fact sheet Thursday that zeros in on how prepared the city is to deal with extreme rain. The breakdown tracks the progress made on key hurricane preparedness efforts flagged in a more comprehensive report launched in April, and identified several areas for improvement.

“New Yorkers deserve a Mayoral administration that is laser focused on managing a more climate-prepared and resilient city,” Lander said in an email.

“Climate change continues to bring more and more devastating storms every hurricane season—and the City needs to improve the way it handles emergency outreach, storm operations, and resilient capital projects to be most prepared,” he noted.

June saw the earliest category five storm on record, Hurricane Beryl, make landfall in the Caribbean and bring heavy rainfall to New York.

The comptroller’s update, which spans from April to August of this year, found that only “modest progress” has been made in maintaining the city’s 153,000 catch basins or storm drains. And not enough New Yorkers, including residents in basement apartments,  are getting emergency notifications when a severe storm hits.

The city has made headway, however, in spending the federal dollars it received to address the damage brought on by hurricane Sandy 12 years ago.

“But far more is needed to be fully prepared for heavy storms,” the factsheet concludes.

Work in progress

When it comes to hurricane preparedness, the least progress has been made in replacing the specialized trucks used to unclog the litter that often makes its way into the city’s catch basins, the fact sheet notes. 

These need to be cleaned regularly so they can easily drain excess rainwater during a storm. 

The 51 catch basin trucks that the city has in its fleet, however, have “aged past their expected useful lives of 8-10 years,” the Comptroller’s April report highlights.  The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is working on replacing 32 of these, and told City Limits they expect the first batch of that allotment to be delivered “likely” within the “next few weeks.”

But the comptroller’s office warns that 18 remaining trucks in the fleet still need to be replaced and that “no timeline” had been provided for those.

“It was really alarming when we found out that a huge proportion of the catch basin cleaning truck fleet was out of service. They had broken parts, were in disrepair and were just waiting to be serviced,” said Louise Yeung, chief climate officer for the comptroller.

“So with such a diminished availability of these specialized catch basin cleaning trucks, It really begs the question of whether the city can actually clean those catch basins effectively in time for the next storm,” she added. 

To top it off, since April, the DEP only replaced 3.2 percent of the catch basins that needed to be swapped out, according to the report. In total, that’s 48 out of 1,500 that the comptroller’s office flagged as needing replacement.

The report also says that only 6.7 percent of catch basins that required new hardware, or 131 out of 1,927, got those replacements.

DEP, however, rebutted these claims, underscoring in an email that “less than 2 percent of the catch basins citywide need to be replaced, and a similar number require hardware upgrades.” 

“Any catch basin that needs to be cleaned is in fact cleaned,” a DEP spokesperson said in an email.

The department also notes that “catch basin maintenance as well as storm preparations are performed year-round” highlighting that they partner with other agencies to follow a city-wide flash flood emergency plan and evaluate chronic flooding locations annually.

But functioning catch basins aren’t the only problem flagged by the comptroller’s office. They claim not enough New Yorkers are being notified when severe storms hit. 

To get text or email alerts from the city about when a storm is on its way, New Yorkers can subscribe to Notify NYC. After signing up, users can opt to receive “basement alerts” that notify those who live in basement apartments, which are typically prone to flooding, about potentially life-threatening weather conditions.

There are over 1.2 million New Yorkers enrolled in the alert system, which Yueng warns is just  “a drop in the bucket” considering the Big Apple’s adult population is almost 7 million people. Between April and August, NotifyNYC subscribers have only increased by 2.7 percent. 

The New York City Emergency Management Department (NYCEM), which helps handle weather emergencies, doubled the number of people enrolled in basement alerts from 2,387 subscribers to 5,147 subscribers. But that still only makes up 1 to 2 percent of the estimated number of basement residents, the comptroller’s office notes.

A NYCEM spokesperson noted in an email that they rely “on multiple resources to inform New Yorkers of potential impacts for all emergencies.” These include agency partners, elected officials, community organizations and a volunteer group of over 700 members who help inform communities when a weather crisis is at large.

Still, environmental groups like We Act that have come up with their own plan to warn folks about what to do during an emergency say more could be done. Passing out emergency kits with tools like first aid supplies, hand crank radios and flashlights, as well as being more strategic about community partnerships the city makes, could go a long way.

“I think the information that the city has created to prepare people for storms and extreme rain events are really not permeating out into the community at the levels that it needs,” said Annie Carforo, the climate justice campaigns manager at WE ACT.

Still, there is some good news. The comptroller’s report found that improvements have been made on spending the federal dollars that poured in to fortify the city from storms after Hurricane Sandy tore through the Big Apple in 2012.

Of the money that came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 75 percent has been spent, up from 66 percent in 2022.

And better yet, 97 percent of the funds that came from the disaster recovery program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has been invested.

The city’s Chief Climate Officer, Rohit Aggarwala, underscored in an email that billions have been invested since hurricane Sandy to prepare the city to weather another massive storm. But admitted that “even with this, the work is far from complete.” 

“The good news is that we have also invested huge amounts of money in resilience—which is not about preventing flooding but ensuring that we can withstand and bounce back from it,” Aggarwala said.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Mariana@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

WINONA, Minn. — After extensive searching in Yellowstone National Park, Austin King, a Winona native and concession employee at the park, remains missing. The park said “limited search efforts” will continue as the search turns to recovery.

“I haven’t given up on the impossible,” Brian King-Henke, Austin’s father, wrote on the family’s GoFundMe page on Wednesday, Oct. 2. “Please stay strong for him and keep him in your prayers.”

Austin King last spoke with a family member on Sept. 17, from the top of Eagle Peak, which is in the park’s “remote southeast corner,” according to the park. Eagle Peak is the highest point in the park at 11,372 feet.

King, 22, is described as a white male who is 6 feet and 160 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes. He was last seen wearing glasses, a black sweatshirt and gray pants.

“Despite significant search efforts over the past week and a half, we have not been able to locate Austin,” Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement. “Although we will continue to hope for the best, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to Austin’s family, friends and colleagues. I also want to thank the teams from Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, and Park and Teton counties, Wyoming, who have all worked tirelessly to find Austin in some of the most difficult and remote terrain in Yellowstone.”

The searchers “have not found any definitive clues as to King’s current whereabouts,” the park said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. King had camped in the upper Howell Creek area.

On a planned seven-day hike to summit Eagle Peak, King noted fog, rain, sleet, hail and windy conditions on the summit. He was reported “overdue” to the Yellowstone Interagency Communications Center on Sept. 20, when he did not arrive for a boat pickup near Yellowstone Lake’s Southeast Arm.

The search efforts, which started on Sept. 21, have included more than 100 personnel and helicopters, a drone, ground searchers, and a search dog team near Eagle Peak, according to the park. The park described the area as “high-elevation, expansive and hazardous.” The searchers reported snow, ice and 6-foot drifts, the park said in a Facebook post on Sept. 24.

People with information about King’s whereabouts can contact the Yellowstone Interagency Communications Center at 307-344-2643.

“Each everyone who has opened their hearts to us we are eternally in your debt,” Brian King-Henke wrote. “I am honored by your kindness.”

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We call it “The October Romp,” this event we have run/walked in, starting 20 years ago. I’m talking about this weekend’s Twin Cities in Motion run/walk lollapalooza of a movement celebration.

For my family and me, our story started those two decades ago when I was about to turn 70 and a nephew, 40. Why not, we asked, celebrate our October birthdays by doing the Twin Cities Marathon? We did, and my daughter, then in her 20s, joined us. As I recall, I was one of the last to finish, the sweeper right behind me. I don’t have the body of a runner; I don’t look like a runner, but I do something that gets me down the road. Suffice it to say that daughter and nephew, both real runners, finished hours before me. But oh well, we all felt terrific, full of joy, unity, connection. Love.

After that marathon, I returned for a 10K (6.2 miles) to mark my 80th birthday. I can still see my daughter, leaving her 7-month-old son with his grandfather and other family members, sprinting down Summit Avenue as I made my way up the other side. There’s a turnaround, and she was homeward-bound.

And now, various family members and I have returned the last 10 years to either run, walk or both in the 5k (3.1miles). That’s what we will be doing on Saturday. I will trot/walk in the back of the pack, a fine place to be even if you don’t gasp in disbelief every time you write your age. My family of runners who will be out there: two nephews, 60 and 62, both with October birthdays; my daughter, 46, and her sons, my grandsons, 11 and 8,

So. Are you looking for joy? Unity? Optimism? Who isn’t these days? Come join my family and me for Saturday’s event, or choose another this year among the many offered by Twin Cities in Motion, amazing purveyors of organized fun. (Kids are free.) Just try staying bleak as you run, walk, jog up and down Summit Avenue and then sail (some of you) into the Capitol finish line. Try hating your neighbors’ politics as your fellow Minnesotans on Summit come out with drums, music, chants and  dancing to cheer you on. I challenge you to not feel the beat — the compelling beat — of all of us helping each other down the road. I’m talking here, of course, about the more leisurely participants, not the gods and goddesses out there setting records. It’s almost like two sports: that of the front of the pack and the back of the pack. (I’d love to see a few more little old ladies out there.)

Of course there are the endorphins — the feel-good buzz from exercise — and I’m here to thank Twin Cities in Motion for my drug all these years. I’ve been a Minnesota fan forever. (I grew up in Red Wing, and now live in Wisconsin.) I want to thank your state for what feels like enduring joy and optimism, despite some horrific, indescribable heart-, body- and soul-rending incidents. Racism is a huge and complex subject that has to be addressed thoughtfully and meaningfully, of course, but I fantasize, perhaps naively, about more people joining the moving throngs of runners/walkers. If they run and walk together, breathe together as they make their way, maybe we can learn to better understand each other.

In a political climate in which the word (and the idea of) joy is being demonized, I commend your Gov. Tim Walz for daring to announce, “We’ve got a chance to spread joy to this country.” He, as a candidate for vice president of the United States, unabashedly evokes the emotion often. As does Kamala Harris in her run for the presidency. “I find joy in optimism,” she has said. And “I find joy in building communities.”

This is a moment for me in which I sense an almost cellular craving for collective joy and optimism. The “audacity of joy?” Yes. Coupled with President Obama’s “audacity of hope.” And I even think back to the 1960s, when I was women’s editor at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, when President Kennedy chided us about our lack of “vigor,” only he said “vigah” with that Boston accent. He, in another American collective moment, said our lack of vigor showed in the fact we probably couldn’t walk 50 miles and dared us to do so. I did, with my Pioneer Press colleague, sports editor Bill Boni — who then walked an extra two miles because he was 52.

Our bodies are meant to move. Movement connects us, enlivens us. As we lament our lack of a shared reality, a run/walk gives us one. Together we pump up the hill, handed to us early in Saturday’s 5K, and then we breathe together, making our way, individually and together. The finish line beckons and our breath quickens. And then … we did it! Victory.

Obviously I am viewing our upcoming event as a metaphor for our sought-after unity.  I also view run/walks as a metaphor for life, with hills and valleys, hard and easy moments, and then, that finish line! That is one thing, for sure, we all share … the finish line.

But meanwhile, let’s romp!

Margaret (Belden) Crimmins Mason, women’s editor of this paper in the 1960s, grew up in Red Wing and now lives in Appleton, Wis., with her husband Carlyle. She formerly worked as a reporter and editor at The Washington Post, finished (slowly, but happily) seven marathons, and loves teaching yoga.

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