Local malls are expecting bigger crowds as shoppers find the urge to spend after pinching pennies for so long. Retailers expect a boost in sales this year, mall officials in the Valley region say. Experts say that means stores will be hiring more workers. Retailers at Glendale Galleria are expecting sales to rise by about 5 percent this year compared to last year, said Shoshana Puccia, senior marketing manager for the shopping center. That’s causing many of the mall’s stores to boost hiring efforts, she said. “They want to make sure they are prepared to offer good customer service and foster increased sales opportunities,” Puccia said. A dozen stores at the mall have announced job openings, including Coach, Hollister, Tilly’s, Sketchers and others. The Antelope Valley Mall also is seeing improvement in the retail climate, said Tricia Granger, the mall’s director of marketing. Retail sales from January to April saw a single-digit percentage increase, she said. “We’ve actually seen better sales this year for the first four months of this year than we have for (the same period) the last couple of years,” Granger said. “We’re hopeful that it will continue.” Nationally, retail sales were up for the 11th straight month in May, the National Retail Federation announced this month. Excluding automobiles, gas stations and restaurants, sales increased 5 percent when compared to May 2010, the group said. National Retail Federation spokesman Scott Krugman said sales growth ultimately leads to more jobs. “Retailers have been adding positions to help turn some of this traffic into sales,” Krugman said. “We can still expect a decent ramp-up in hiring in the third and fourth quarters due to the back-to-school and the winter holiday season.” In Los Angeles County, overall taxable retail sales for 2011 are expected to increase 5.7 percent compared to 2010, said Kimberly Ritter-Martinez, associate economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. The LAEDC is expecting an even higher gain of 6.6 percent in 2012, she said. The projections come from the LAEDC’s most current economic forecast, which was released in February. Those projections will be updated next month. While consumers are trying to pay off debt and are concerned about higher gas and commodity prices, they are also feeling “frugal fatigue” and want to start spending again, Ritter-Martinez said. “You have some stores that are doing phenomenally well like Forever 21,” Ritter-Martinez said, noting that the chain benefits from offering inexpensive prices. “Then there’s other stores that tend to cater to mid-level consumers, and they’re struggling quite a bit,” she said. High-end retailers are also doing well because they have a more financially stable customer base, she said. Hiring Climb Retail employment in Los Angeles County will also see some improvement, Ritter-Martinez said. Employment in the sector is slated to increase 1.1 percent this year. That compares to declines of 1.3 percent in 2010 and 7.2 percent in 2009. Next year, retail hiring is expected to go up another 2.4 percent increase, she said. Los Angeles-based Forever 21 will do more hiring this year as it prepares to open new stores, said Lindsay Buckley, a company spokeswoman. The chain has at least 10 stores located in the greater San Fernando Valley region. Dozens of people recently lined up in front of the Forever 21 store at the Northridge Fashion Center, waiting to be interviewed for vacant store positions. While the store is not new, it recently underwent a major expansion, moving from an 8,112-square-foot space to about a 25,000-square-foot space, mall officials said. Spenser Prince, a 19-year-old Northridge resident who applied for one of the store’s positions, said he’s been unemployed for six months. He is still waiting to see more retail jobs. “Sometimes when the economy picks up a little bit, they want to keep the same amount of employees so they can maintain profitability,” he said. “You never know what they’re trying to do.”
