Black Friday

The National Retail Federation says that expected holiday says in November and December will increase between 3.6% and 4% this year, resulting in total sales of $678.75 billion to $682 billion (up from $655.8 billion in 2016). Because Christmas falls on a Monday this year (Sunday last year), there’s one extra shopping day in the holiday season. With retail employment up, hiring of temporary help will be down to about 500,000 to 550,000 (from 575,000 last year).