Nicholas Strahl has always been able to find extra work around the holidays. But this year has been the exception.
Mr Strahl, 41, works as a part-time retail sales associate at an office supplies store just outside Indianapolis, Indiana. While the pay is okay, he said it never hurts to have a little bit more.
Finding seasonal holiday employment, for extra cash to pay his bills and buy holiday gifts for friends and family, has been a challenge. He started his search in early October and applied to CVS, Best Buy and a slew of other retailers - to no avail.
I've never seen the job market like this - it's pretty crazy, he said.
It doesn't really leave a lot of power for people who just want to get a job, or have a supplement in income.
Seasonal hiring is poised to drop to its lowest level since the aftermath of the 2008 recession, according to the National Retail Federation. The pullback, a sign of caution among US businesses in the face of tariffs and consumer angst, comes as more people are looking for work in the cooling job market.
The industry group expects retailers to hire between 265,000 and 365,000 seasonal workers, down from 442,000 last year.
The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which also predicted the weakest holiday season for retail hiring in more than 15 years, said tariffs, inflation and reliance on automation are dampening demand for seasonal hires.
If Mr Strahl can't land a holiday job, he plans to cut down on holiday gifts and hold off on some car repairs. He will wait to replace his old laptop.
At this point, he said, I'm willing to take anything I can get.
Data from Indeed shows that while postings for seasonal work have largely held steady compared to last year, more people are seeking seasonal jobs.
And in retail, traditionally one of the biggest hirers for the holidays, there are fewer opportunities.
The labour market is frozen with frostbite, said Allison Shrivastava, an economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab. The fact that seasonal job postings have held steady from last year is reflective of the labour market's paralysis, she said.
You have a much bigger labour pool competing for a smaller number of jobs, she added.
The government shutdown, which lasted more than one month before ending on 13 November, had delayed the release of official data on the labour market. But data for September, finally released last week, showed a surprising pick-up in hiring after a lacklustre summer. Employers added 119,000 jobs in September, more than double what many analysts had expected, but the unemployment rate ticked up from 4.3% to 4.4%.
Data from Revelio Labs, a workforce intelligence firm, shows job openings in the retail sector in October were down 22% from last year. The drop signals less demand among retailers for holiday workers.
Walmart may hire on a store-by-store basis, but extra hours during the holidays will mostly be given to current employees, a company spokesperson said.
For Hobby Works, a chain of two toy stores in Maryland, pressure from tariff costs and whiplash on economic policy this year has been compounded in recent weeks by the federal government shutdown. The company, which employs 24 people, pushed back its usual timeline for hiring seasonal workers, president Michael Brey said.
Hanukkah always happens, Christmas always comes, so we try not to alter our hiring patterns too much, Mr Brey said. But this is the first year we're moving very slowly.
