Retailers are hiring more people in preparation for the return of in-store holiday shopping.

NEW YORK, Oct. 6This year, big stores like Walmart (NYSE:WMT) are putting most of their new holiday hires to work on the store floors. This is because more Americans are shopping in stores instead of online.

Walmart Inc. told Reuters that 36,500 of the seasonal jobs it is hiring for this year are in-store jobs. That’s 91% of the 40,000 new holiday jobs the government said would be created in September. Walmart told Reuters that the last 9% will go to people who work in call centres and drive trucks.

Party City said it will hire about 20,000 seasonal workers before Halloween, which is 3,000 more than it did last year. These workers will work at more than 750 Party City stores and 150 Halloween City pop-up locations. The company said that about 10% to 15% of seasonal workers will be given permanent jobs at the end of the season.

Michaels Companies, Inc., a store that sells arts and crafts, is hiring 15,000 temporary workers for the holiday season. This is less than the 20,000 people it hired last year. A spokesperson said that all of the new employees will be working in stores, just like they did last year.

Inflation that has been high for decades is likely to make many shoppers look for deals and discounts in stores. Corey Berkey, senior vice president of people and talent at human resources services company Employ Inc., said, “Retail store traffic will go up during the holiday season, but e-commerce sales may stay the same.” “Retailers will have to adjust their staff in response to this big change.”

The retail research company NPD talked to 3,600 people and found that 46% said they would do more of their holiday shopping in stores in 2022. This is up from 42% in 2021. NPD found that in 2021, 50% of people said they would shop online. By 2022, that figure had dropped to 45%.

According to NPD, plans to shop at large retailers such as Walmart and Target Corp (NYSE:TGT) increased the most from 2021, while plans to shop online decreased the most.

A Walmart spokesperson, Jimmy Carter, told Reuters that the company doesn’t need to hire any more seasonal workers for its distribution centres this year because it already has enough people working there. Last year, Walmart hired 150,000 new people to work in its stores in the U.S. Most of these jobs were permanent and full-time. The company also hired 20,000 supply chain workers to work in its more than 250 Walmart and Sam’s Club distribution centres (DCs), online order fulfilment centres, and transportation offices. Last year, it didn’t add jobs in a call centre or as a truck driver.

With annual inflation at 8.3% in August, Bain & Co. says that Americans will spend $915 billion, which is up 7.5%. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., an outplacement and career transitioning firm, predicts that retailers will hire 680,000 more people during the holiday shopping season in 2022. This is less than the 700,000 people who were hired last year.

Adrian Mitchell, the CFO of Macy’s Inc. (NYSE:M), told Reuters last month that people making Christmas travel plans earlier would mean that people would start shopping for holiday gifts early at its stores, which would help with staffing.

Mitchell said, “It makes it much easier to keep track of the flow of stock and staff the stores.”

The company that runs department stores said at the end of September that it would hire more than 41,000 seasonal workers, which is about 7,000 less than it hired in 2021. Most of the jobs will be in-store jobs at Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, and BlueMercury.

Target said it would hire up to 100,000 seasonal workers, which is the same number as last year but less than the 130,000 workers it hired in 2019 and 2020. Target said it was hiring people for holiday jobs, such as stocking stores.

Dick’s Sporting Goods (NYSE:DKS) said in September that it was hiring for jobs at its own stores and its subsidiaries Public Lands, Field & Stream, and Gone!