Every year, hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers take on seasonal jobs during the holidays. This year those jobs look harder to come by.
Queens, N.Y., native Meredith Carbonell, 37 years old, has applied to holiday jobs at Kohl’s, Target and other retailers after losing her full-time job last holiday season. So far, she hasn’t found any takers, and her savings have begun to dry out.
“I don’t want to end up…having no money at all. I don’t want to be living paycheck to paycheck,” said Carbonell, who lives in her grandmother’s house with her mother and 15-year-old son.
The retail and transportation-and-warehousing sectors typically rush to hire as they staff up for the holidays, and let those workers go once the season is over. In the final three months of last year, the two sectors added 912,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department. They then shed 858,000 jobs over January and February.