Seasonal jobs used to be a way that a person could pick up a couple of quick bucks for the holiday season, or a way that a kid could get a look at the world of work without having to commit to a position that spanned the whole of the school year. In the more recent years these positions have been taken on by people who are looking to make ends meet in a time when the economy is making it hard for even the best qualified candidates to find a long term position after only a few months of job searching.

Well, as it turns out even the short-term options may end up harder to find for two reasons. The first reason is obvious, employers now have a large pool of qualified candidates that they can choose from. That means they have the option to be a lot more selective than The second is that the hiring for the season this winter holiday may be significantly lower than it has been in previous years, even the previous years in recent memory. That means bad news for the unemployed who have just finished their last benefits extension and now will have a harder time finding even a short term safety net to get them through their extended hard times.

Holiday related retail hiring was actually strong, considering the current economic condition, in October of this year. There were 141,500 new seasonal jobs added to the economy in the last month. This being said the overall hiring for the season will be lower than it was for the holiday season last year. According to research released by the layoff consulting firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

This research showed that hiring in the month of October for seasonal positions was about 1.8% lower than the hiring for seasonal positions was last October. Though these numbers are still significantly higher than the numbers for the same month of seasonal hiring in during the official recession. That is not to say that it is not still a bad sign for later season hiring. Based on this information, and other data, the firm predicts that seasonal hiring will be about the same, and possibly even a little bit less than it was for the 2010 holiday season.

Of course, there is some room for change in the predictions. Their official statement from Chief Executive John A. Challenger, relayed to a reporter for another media outlet, went like this, “November will give us the best indication of how 2011 stacks up when it comes to holiday hiring.

Challenger, Gray & Christmas are not the only ones who are predicting a lower set of holiday’s hiring for this years holiday season. Information released by the popular career site, Career Builder, has shown that fewer retailers are planning to hire on workers for the holiday season.

To put things in perspective John A. Challenger summed up the situation like this, “Even if retailers dramatically increase hiring in November, it will not be easy to find a job for those seeking seasonal positions. The competition remains stiff with so many people out of work.”