Dive Brief:

• Macy’s Inc. said Tuesday that it aims to hire some 83,000 seasonal workers for its Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s department stores, call centers, distribution centers and online fulfillment centers, a slight decrease from last year. 

• About 15,000 of the new Macy's hires will be based in direct-to-consumer fulfillment facilities that support online and omnichannel sales, up from just 3,000 last year. Another 1,000 will be hired to interact with customers directly via telephone, e-mail and online chat at customer service centers in Ohio, Florida, and Arizona. In addition, more than 1,000 people will be hired across the country to help with the 90th Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and other holiday events.

• Macy's is holding its first national “holiday hiring day” on Friday, Sept. 30. Applicants can visit any Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, or Macy’s Backstage store for on-site interviews. Many workers hired for the holidays end up working well past the season, Macy’s said.

Dive Insight:

Although seasonal hiring at Macy’s appears to be steady this year, the shift to hire 12,000 more workers earmarked for roles removed from the sales floor means that stores won’t be getting the extra help they usually do.

While Macy’s is closing stores and aims to make up those sales online, that approach has been questioned by some observers, who say that stores are central to its operations. But it could also spell trouble for the stores themselves, considering how important retail customer service — from humans — continues to be, even in an era when technology has sped up or even taken over many tasks. In fact, experts have told Retail Dive that store staff have taken on the responsibility of selling not just a retailer’s wares, but also its brand.

“In years past, the store associate focused only on selling what was in the store,” Kevin Swanwick, senior director of retail solutions at Manhattan Associates, told Retail Dive earlier this year. “Today, store associates are tasked with selling the enterprise, basically selling anything, to anyone, anywhere.”

Experts say that technology should be employed to take over automated tasks that are actually best done by machines and machine learning that can crunch numbers and get meaningful results, precisely so that in-store workers can work with customers to help a retailer deliver a good experience.

"We want to protect that amazing moment when the clerk and the customer are having an interaction," Brett Wickard, founder and president of “lean retail” software solutions firm FieldStack, told Retail Dive. 

“However our customers connect with us — in stores, online and mobile, or over the phone — Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s shoppers have come to appreciate the higher level of our staffing and service throughout the Christmas and holiday season,” Macy’s chairman and CEO Terry Lundgren said in a statement. “We first offer our current associates the opportunity to work extra hours over the holidays, and then supplement our ongoing workforce with seasonal hires. This significant increase in staffing allows us to provide additional service to customers, however they engage with us.”