Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
But what do those words mean in an economic or jobs creation sense? This festive season, or simply the holidays, is a time for gathering and celebrating with family and friends, gift giving, reflection and thanks. The U.S. Census Bureau has several holiday-related facts and figures from its collection of statistics including:
- $24.4 billion, which is the estimated retail sales by the nation’s department stores (including leased departments) in December 2013. This represents an estimated 40.9 percent jump from the previous month when retail sales were estimated at 17.3 billion. No other month-to-month increase in department store sales last year was as large.
- 22.8%, which is the estimated growth in inventories by our nation’s department stores (excluding leased departments) from Aug. 31 to Nov. 30, 2013.
- 13.9%, that is the estimated percentage of total 2013 sales for department stores (including leased departments) in December. For jewelry stores, the estimated percentage was 19.1 percent.
- $44.5 billion, which is the estimated value of retail sales by electronic shopping and mail-order houses in December 2013 — the highest total for any month last year.
- 30,185, which is the number of electronic shopping and mail-order houses in business in 2012 (the last year available for reporting). These businesses, which employed 365,508 workers in the pay period including March 12, are a popular source of holiday gifts.
- $1 Billion, which is the value of U.S. imports of Christmas tree ornaments from China between January and September 2014. China was the leading country of origin for such items. Similarly, China was the leading foreign source of artificial Christmas trees shipped to the United States ($137.5 million worth) during the same period.
- 563, which is the number of locations that primarily produced dolls, toys, and games in 2012 (the last year available for reporting); they employed 7,481 workers in the pay period including March 12. California led the nation with 95 establishments.
Also, the U.S. economy gained a lot of momentum later in the year, including the DOW rising almost 1000 points in the final five trading days before Christmas, to close above 18000 for the first time in history! Additionally, there was the strongest GDP report in over 10 years!
What about jobs growth? As part of many engineering recruiter, scientific recruiter, technical recruiter, R&D recruiter, IT job recruiter, Electrical engineer recruiter and executive recruiter forums and associations, I regularly poll my fellow management recruiters to get their pulse. Almost to a person, all executive recruitment agencies agree with my comments made during my recent interview with First Business about 2015 hiring trends.
What are your findings?
