Holiday Spending Forecasted at +3%

(IDEX Online News) – The International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) is forecasting a 3.0 percent sales increase for the traditional November-December holiday period in the U.S. Spending at shopping centers are forecast to grow 2.5 percent to 4463 billion.

ICSC states that this year’s season comes with a bit more uncertainty than usual because of the increased crosscurrents: a softening in the economy, improving housing prices and markets, rising gasoline prices, a presidential election and the infamous looming $500 billion in automatic spending cuts to the federal budget and tax increases slated for January 1, 2013.

“Despite the cautiousness displayed in our forecast for the 2012 holiday season due to the uncertainty about the automatic spending cuts, Congress has a real opportunity to resolve the issue quickly and amicably to assuage consumer fears, which, in turn, could propel this season’s performance far above ICSC’s current expectations," says Michael P. Niemira, vice president of research and chief economist for ICSC  

Additionally, holiday hiring is highly correlated with holiday spending and it appears that overall, retailers will add over 26 thousand seasonal jobs this year, which would be a modest increase over 2011.