Last week, as the national economic news grew more grim, there were merchants at the Ross Park Mall looking for employees. Piercing Pagoda, Christmas Traditions and Brookstone all had openings.

While nationally unemployment is 6.5 percent, it is lower in the Pittsburgh region, at 5.4 percent. The retail sector nationally has been responsible for a disproportionate share of the layoffs in the last 12 months -- and gloomy merchants are expected to do less holiday hiring than usual -- but there are signs that jobs can still be found here.

That was Tyrone Campbell's experience. The 20-year-old student of business administration at Community College of Allegheny County used to work at Foot Locker, but he moved on to a job as a salesman at Villa, a Downtown clothing store that sells sneakers and sportswear.

And as Tony Fallucco, manager of Litman Jewelers at Ross Park, watches more shoppers arrive at the mall to check out new arrivals such as Nordstrom, Tiffany's and this week L.L. Bean, he's considering hiring still more help.

He's already got more people than last year -- two new workers came on board in October -- because he discovered last year that the store was understaffed for the seasonal surge.

The holidays also mean additional hiring at FedEx Ground, the shipping operation based in Moon. The company is planning to hire about 200 people to supplement its Pittsburgh operations, said spokesman David Westrick. Locally, FedEx Ground needs drivers and package handlers.

Such anecdotal evidence seems to conflict with national statistics showing that while retail sales provide 12 percent of the jobs in the work force, the sector has been responsible for about 25 percent of the layoffs in the last 12 months.

James Craft, a professor at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, said the scene in Pittsburgh may be a bit different because just as the region was not drastically affected by the housing bubble and subsequent bursting of that bubble, it also has a lower unemployment rate than the rest of the country.

Any holiday hiring is welcome news as unemployment figures continue to climb. Nationally unemployment hit a 14-year-high of 6.5 percent in October, according to the Department of Labor.

In September, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, there were overall 7,000 more nonfarm jobs in the Pittsburgh region compared with last year, but there were 1,100 fewer jobs in the retail industry -- which employed 127,900 workers.

Mr. Craft said the applicant pool for holiday season retail sales jobs includes people who have lost permanent full-time sales positions.

Nationally, many retailers are forecasting a less than jolly holiday season. The International Council of Shopping Centers, which tracks almost 40 chain stores, projected a meager 1 percent gain in sales for November and December.

Archstone Consulting, a management strategy and operations consulting firm, had a more dismal projection of just 0.5 percent growth, which would be down 2.1 percent from last year when adjusted for inflation.

Dave Sievers, an Archstone consultant in New York, said retailers trying to save money by cutting back on holiday help may in fact do more damage than good. Not having extra people will mean messier stores, a lack of customer service and longer lines at the checkout counters.

"It accentuates what people don't like about shopping," he said.

The pain of the current recession, he said, is being most deeply felt on the coasts and in places such as Arizona, Nevada and Detroit. After the traumatic 1970s and 1980s when the steel mills closed in southwestern Pennsylvania, he said, "I think Pittsburgh deserves a pass" this time around.