It's Crunch Time in the Toy Industry
August 2008
The annual summer doldrums for the economy at large and the toy industry in particular are beginning to come to a close. Toyjobs’ fast first half start which had us on track to have our best year ever fell off precipitously in late June, July and early August. Both search starts and search closes slowed to a crawl. However, just over the past week I have noticed that things have begun to pick up. Suddenly we are having a lot of discussions about new search starts and should be beginning a number of new searches shortly. All of this is pretty predictable and is part of the annual hiring cycle for toy company jobs. Same as it ever was.
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Caution Remains the Word of the Day
June 2008
Although it appears that we are not technically in recession and first quarter GDP numbers were actually revised upward, caution remains the word of the day. Overall retail sales rose in April and again in May but the main beneficiaries were deep discounters like Wal-Mart and Costco while higher priced stores had a difficult time. It seems that the Bush administration’s stimulus plan has had a positive short term effect but those $600 dollar checks will be long gone by September and the beginning of the holiday sales season. Read full article
Toyjobs Takes Off to Its Best Start Ever
April 2008
Toyjobs has gotten off to the fastest start in its twenty-seven year history. Unfortunately, I don’t think that is likely to continue. This is counter to the economic climate and I would certainly agree that there are fewer jobs out there and less toy company hiring. This seems to be what’s going on. Read full article
Toy Fair Outlook - Cautious
March 2008
The February Toy Fair seemed to go pretty well. The Javits Center maintained its world record of having the hardest floors on the planet. I did notice that several mass market companies were not “showing” although some had representatives lurking in the aisles. Mass market companies that grumbled beforehand that this would be their last one all seemed satisfied and said that they would be back. Specialty toy companies were having a field day and seemed to be a much more jovial group. Read full article
Toy Jobs Posts Third Best Year
January 2008
Toyjobs posted its third best year out of twenty-six for 2007. It was a crazy and confusing period. With 2006 being our second best year coupled with 2006 toy sales being up 4 to 5 percent (rather than the usual down 4 or 5%) I figured we would start strong in 2007, but that’s not the way it happened. There were not a lot of toy company jobs available in the early going and in fact our sales were only at about fifty percent of normal through the end of June. Read full article
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