The hours this year seem to be the same as they were last year. If you aren't getting as many right now, it's probably because they just hired a ton of seasonal people; seasonal hours are really only for like the last week of November and all of December, so you're going to be really short on hours for the next few weeks and then again in January (even the last week of December...) until the seasonal hires are gone. But even then, some will stay on, and hours will be low. And then you'll get told that hours go up in the spring, but they don't really, so your hours might stay low. And then they need to hire for back to school, but the hours only really go up for about 2 weeks, so your hours will probably be low for the entire summer except those 2 weeks. Then we're into the fall where hours are low. Then they start hiring seasonally and your hours get worse, and then better for 5 weeks... etc.
Literally every year people say "omg hours are so low I can't believe it this company is going down the tubes". Most non-TLs won't get scheduled for 40 hours per week. Even some TLs don't get 40, depending on the store. The hours are low for 45 out of the 52 weeks in the year. That's how this works. It's not because they increased our pay. It's because they want (short-term) profits, and it's not profitable to have a perfectly run store. Mediocrity is far more profitable.
