The CPG & Retail Talent Market in 2026.

Key findings

26.7%

voluntary turnover in retail & wholesale — the highest of any sector Mercer measured, roughly 2x the 13.0% all-industry average.¹

265K–365K

2025 holiday seasonal hires forecast by NRF — the lowest level in at least 15 years, down from 442,000 in 2024.²

63%

of CPG employers cite skills gaps as their primary barrier to growth; 42% expect talent availability to decline further.⁵

737K

retail trade job openings in March 2026, up 48% year-over-year even as seasonal hiring volumes moderate.⁷

43%

of hourly retail and hospitality hires leave within 90 days, driving continuous re-hiring cycles.¹³

01 — The ScaleHow big is retail and CPG hiring, really?

Retail is the largest private employer in America — and its labor market moves fast in both directions.

Retail is the single largest private-sector employer in the U.S., directly and indirectly supporting 55 million jobs — about 1 in 4 U.S. jobs — and contributing $5.3 trillion to GDP.⁶ Retail alone directly employs 32.2 million people, representing 26% of total U.S. employment and $3.0 trillion in labor income.⁶ CPG, meanwhile, is consolidating fast — 140 M&A deals closed in 2025 worth roughly $152 billion, up 50% in value year over year — each reshuffling talent needs across the newly combined organizations.⁸

02 — The Turnover CrisisWhy does retail lose so many workers?

Retail turnover runs roughly 2x the all-industry average — and hourly turnover can top 60%.

Mercer's 2025 U.S. Turnover Survey found voluntary turnover in retail and wholesale at 26.7%, the highest of any sector measured and nearly double the 13.0% all-industry average.¹ In-store hourly turnover can run 60% or higher in a given year, and Korn Ferry data shows hourly retail turnover peaked at 75.8% in 2022 before easing to roughly 60–65% by late 2024.⁹¹⁴

Much of this is front-loaded: 43% of hourly retail and hospitality staff leave within their first 90 days, and separations run 3.8–4.1% monthly versus a 3.0% all-sector average.¹³¹⁰ The lesson: retail's staffing challenge isn't just filling a role once — it's filling it repeatedly, on a short clock.

03 — The Seasonal ShiftIs seasonal hiring disappearing?

2025 saw the lowest holiday seasonal hiring forecast in 15 years — even as holiday sales hit a record.

NRF forecast just 265,000–365,000 seasonal hires for the 2025 holidays, the lowest level in at least 15 years and down sharply from 442,000 in 2024 — even as holiday sales were projected to surpass $1 trillion for the first time.²³ Retailers appear to be leaning more on existing staff hours, automation, and flexible scheduling than on net-new seasonal headcount.

At the same time, overall retail job openings are rising: 737,000 openings in March 2026, up 48% year-over-year, per BLS JOLTS data.⁷ The mix is shifting — fewer pure seasonal adds, more year-round and specialized roles.

04 — The CPG Skills GapWhat's the hardest talent to find in CPG?

Nearly two-thirds of CPG employers say skills gaps — especially digital and analytics talent — are their biggest growth barrier.

63% of CPG employers cite skills gaps as their primary barrier to growth, and 42% expect talent availability to decline further over the next five years, according to Slayton Search's 2025 CPG talent-war analysis.⁵ CPG CEO tenure has compressed to just 7.7 years on average, reflecting how much pressure boards are putting on leadership to modernize commercial and digital capability fast.⁵

"Retail's problem is volume and churn. CPG's problem is scarcity and specialization. Most hiring tools are built for only one of those — not both."

05 — The Application ParadoxIf applicant volume is up, why is hiring still slow?

Retailers now get more applicants per opening than ever — the bottleneck has moved to screening, not sourcing.

Retail openings now draw roughly 43 applicants per role on average, up from 35 — evidence that volume isn't the constraint anymore.⁷ Yet time-to-fill for retail overall still runs 40–42 days, with corporate and management roles running 45–90+ days and senior roles 90–120+ days.¹¹¹² One 2025 analysis found hourly retail time-to-fill improved from 95 to 67 days after retailers automated the top of the hiring funnel — evidence that fixing screening friction, not adding more applicants, is what moves the needle.¹⁵

06 — The PlaybookWhat should a retail or CPG talent team do about it?

Five moves separate the retail and CPG organizations that will win the next 24 months of hiring:

1. Automate the top of the hourly funnel. With 43 applicants per opening, instant screening and self-service scheduling — not more sourcing — is where speed comes from.
2. Screen for fit before day one. Since 43% of hourly hires leave within 90 days, matching on genuine fit signals up front reduces the churn that keeps recruiters refilling the same seats.
3. Re-engage your existing pool first. Mine ATS history for previously screened seasonal and hourly candidates before sourcing net-new for repeat roles.
4. Widen the aperture for scarce CPG roles. Skill-graph matching surfaces adjacent-industry digital and analytics talent that keyword search misses.
5. Plan for churn, not just one-time hiring. Build always-on sourcing pipelines for chronically high-turnover roles instead of treating each vacancy as a one-off search.

This is precisely the model UPPER was built to run: autonomous, compliant sourcing and screening that scales for hourly volume and narrows for corporate scarcity — all in one platform, so lean retail and CPG talent teams can staff both ends of the spectrum without two separate toolchains.

The Walmart AI-hiring reference (Section on time-to-fill improvement) is drawn from third-party reporting on a vendor case study, not an independently audited outcome, and is presented here as illustrative context.

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Sources

1. Mercer — 2025 US Turnover Survey
2. CNBC — Retail Holiday Hiring Lowest in 15 Years
3. National Retail Federation — 2025 Holiday Sales Forecast
4. National Retail Federation — Retail's Impact
5. Slayton Search — Securing Executive Leaders in the CPG Talent War
6. NRF / PwC — Retail's Impact Report, March 2024
7. iCIMS via SDC Executive — Retail and Transportation Job Openings Study
8. McKinsey — CPG Reigniting Growth via Portfolio Realignment, Feb 2026
9. Actify (citing McKinsey) — Why Retention Matters in Retail
10. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — JOLTS Table 4
11. Humanly — Time to Hire Benchmarks by Industry
12. Tyges (citing SHRM) — The Hidden Toll of an Empty Chair
13. Pin AI (citing Fountain) — Retail & Hospitality Hiring Data
14. Analysis Atlas — Frontline Workforce Turnover Analysis (Korn Ferry data)
15. JobTarget — Q3 2025 Retail Recruitment Report
16. McKinsey — AI and Automation in the Consumer Enterprise, June 2025

This report synthesizes third-party research current as of July 2026; figures are attributed to their original sources above. Some forward projections are inherently uncertain. UPPER edition H2 2026 — refreshed semiannually.