It looks like consumer electronics retailer Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) is extending an odd olive branch to some of the 3,400 ex-employees it sluffed off this past Spring by offering some of them their jobs back.

How nice! Although almost every retailer ramps up employee counts for the holidays, one has to wonder if the invitation Circuit City is extending to these former workers is for month-long help or something more. If the retailer is offering former employees jobs again for a month-long retail period filled with stressed customers, long hours and nightmarish retail conditions, who would take up the offer?

From one perspective, it's like the retailer is pouring salt on the wounds of its former workers. From another point of view, a holiday income is not a bad thing, regardless. With the retailer's 650 U.S. stores, company officials say that several thousand temporary workers could be needed to provide sufficient staffing in stores this holiday season.

If you're a former employee who was fired by the retailer and you had an offer come in the mail, what would you do? Inquiring minds want to know.

Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) said recently that it would hire between 20,000 and 25,000 seasonal workers for this year's holiday shopping rush. Sounds like quite a few temporary workers, doesn't it? Would you believe that it's about half of what the retailer hired last season?

Seasonal jobs include those who staff stockrooms, restaurants, gift-wrap centers and sales floors -- but this year's number may be quite a bit lower than last year's seasonal labor total. The usual suspects have already dampened the prospects for sales growth this holiday season: rising energy prices, the continued housing slump, declining credit availability and consumer confidence and (insert your choice of problems here).

As a result, the National Retail Federation has forecast the smallest holiday-sales gain since 2002: 4%, compared with a 10-year average of 4.8%. With so many factors in place to cause concern among holiday shoppers, a 4% figure really is pretty tame. In addition to low growth forecasts, retailers are getting a grasp on efficiency, and they're targeting labor as the largest area that needs refinement.

Store layouts, scheduling systems and other operational changes are needed at many retailers I see. There is so much labor inefficiency, it's staggering. But, labor markets in the retail sector are changing, according to Michael Niemira, chief economist and director of research at the International Council of Shopping Centers. He said that "The industry is cutting employment." He added that retail has cut employment in four of the last five months -- and we're just into November.