Retailers tighten holiday hiring plans

PORTLAND – Kittery Trading Post, reflecting the uncertainty of current economic times, expects to hire only half as many workers as it did last year for the holiday shopping season.

Fox Keim, vice president for hunting and fishing at Kittery Trading Post, said employers walk a fine line because they don’t want to make promises to people and then let them go.

Kittery Trading Post has 400 or so year-round workers and brought on roughly 70 seasonal workers last fall.

Other retailers also are expected to make do with less holiday help.

With 4,000 year-round workers in Maine, L.L. Bean is one of the state’s largest employers and relies heavily on seasonal help to fill holiday orders. After hiring 7,000 workers last fall, this season it’s bringing on 5,400 – a 23 percent reduction.

Company spokeswoman Carolyn Beem said Bean’s expects “a tough fourth quarter, as well as going into the spring.”