Macy's joins Kohl's, Target in keeping holiday season hiring flat

Macy's Inc said it would hire about 83,000 temporary workers for the holiday quarter, the third major retailer after Kohl's and Target to keep seasonal hiring largely unchanged from last year.

Macy's, which operates the namesake Macy's and Bloomingdale's department store chains, had hired 85,000 temporary workers for last year's holiday shopping season, down from 86,000 in 2014.

The company has been struggling with sliding sales, hurt by unseasonable weather, lower tourist spending and stiff competition from online retailer Amazon.com Inc and off-price rivals such as TJX Cos Inc.

Macy's has been shutting stores in response.

It said in September last year it would shut 35-40 stores in early 2016. Last month, the company announced plans to shutter 100 more stores.

Macy's said on Tuesday it operates about 880 stores.

Other large retailers including Kohl's Corp have also shut a few stores amid a challenging retail environment.

Kohl's said on Monday it would hire more than 69,000 extra workers for the holiday season, while Target Corp said last week it would hire 70,000 in-store workers for the period.

Macy's said on Tuesday that about 15,000 of its seasonal hires this year would be employed at its fulfillment centers that support the company's omnichannel sales - an increase of 3,000 from last year.

The company will hire about 1,000 workers at its customer service centers and more than 1,000 to support the Macy's annual Thanksgiving Day Parade and other events, it said.

(Reporting by Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh)