As retailers prepare for the holiday shopping season, a smaller and increasingly younger candidate pool is raising the stakes for employers competing for frontline talent. ICIMS, the Intelligent Hiring Platform, today released the ICIMS Insights October 2026 Workforce Report, which finds frontline applications ended September 18% below baseline while retail time to fill remained at 37 days. With fewer candidates entering the hiring funnel and seasonal demand approaching, retailers have less room for delays and greater need to identify qualified candidates, re-engage known talent and move people through the hiring process faster.

The shift reflects a broader cooling across the U.S. labor market. Drawing on proprietary ICIMS data from more than 3.1 million users and 691 million candidate profiles, the report found U.S. hiring fell 7% below the September 2025 baseline, while job openings remained 3% above baseline. In September, hiring, openings and applications all moved down together, making hiring efficiency increasingly important for employers that still need to fill critical roles.

Retailers Face a Smaller, Younger Candidate Pool Heading Into the Holidays

ICIMS frontline and retail data points to a candidate pool that is becoming harder to convert into hires as retailers enter their busiest hiring period:

• The frontline candidate pool is thinning. Application volume for typical high-volume roles, such as sales associates and cashiers, ended September 18% below baseline. Applicants per opening also reached their lowest point of the year (29). With fewer candidates entering the funnel, retailers have less room to lose qualified applicants to slow communication or inefficient hiring processes.
• Gen Z is leading the retail applicant pool. Candidates ages 18 to 24 made up 40% of retail applicants in September, up from 37% a year ago, while every age group 45 and older lost share. Retailers need hiring experiences that meet candidates where they are and make it easy to communicate and move forward.
• Retail hiring speed has remained flat. Retail time to fill closed September at 37 days, remaining in the mid-30-day range throughout the year. With seasonal demand approaching, retailers cannot afford avoidable bottlenecks that add more time to the hiring process.
• Frontline hiring cooled after a strong summer. High-volume hiring remained above the September 2025 baseline from March through August before falling to 8% below baseline in September, making it increasingly important for retailers to make the most of candidates already in their talent pools.

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