What Black Friday Sales Mean for the Economy

Black Friday has been notoriously the biggest shopping day for years. Every year, hundreds of millions of shoppers gear up before the crack of dawn to start their Christmas shopping. This is one of the most important weekends of the year for retailers, giving them one last opportunity before the end of the year to make the difference between a profitable year and a non-profitable year.

Most retail stores make 20%-40% of their annual revenue from Black Friday. With roughly 100 million shoppers out on Black Friday, retail stores often hire temporary seasonal workers or temp to hire workers to help out through the holiday season. This year, somewhere between 720,000 and 780,000 seasonal workers will be hired to help out with the holiday shopping chaos. The number of seasonal jobs added for the 2014 holidays is increasing significantly from the 720,500 temporary jobs added last holiday season.

The 2014 Black Friday overall shopper traffic was down from last year, but it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Since the recession, shopping trends have shifted to thrifty habits; relying heavily on Black Friday discounts, coupons, and extra savings. Some suggest that the number of decreasing Black Friday traffic is a result of an improving economy; consumers not being so dependent on the extra savings and discounts that they can only get on Black Friday. Where the number of in-store sales may have decreased, online sales are increasing at twice the rate.

Black Friday is still the biggest shopping day for the holiday weekend. As the economy continues to improves, the job market continues to add jobs and unemployment is down. More people working means that more people have the money to spend and the cycle continues to improve the retail economy.

It’s also important to realize that black Friday involves more than just retail. Many businesses throughout the United States are getting involved in black Friday than ever before.