Christmas failed to deliver for unemployed retail workers in 2017, but there's still a chance that President Trump's tax cuts will provide the hiring boost that the normally generous holiday shopping season didn't.

U.S. employment data for December, released on Friday, showed the retail workforce shrank by 20,300 in December, compared with a gain of 13,300 a year earlier. While the numbers may have been skewed by stores adding workers in November, when an early Thanksgiving started the holiday shopping period sooner than usual, they compound a year-long contraction in the industry's workforce.

The workforce in department stores such as Macy's and Sears shrank 8.2 percent from the previous month to 1.28 million and the number of employees at general merchandise outlets dropped 19 percent to 1.8 million, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Smoothing the data to account for November reveals "very little growth overall for retail jobs," Michelle Meyer, an economist with Bank of America in New York, told Washington Examiner.

For the full year, the entire retail workforce contracted 20 percent to 15.8 million as brick-and-mortar stores shut their doors amid a broad consumer shift to Internet outlets like Amazon.

That trend has continued in 2018, with Macy's announcing Thursday that it would close 11 more stores as part of a plan announced two years ago to eliminate 100 of its branches to ensure it held the most competitive mix of digital and physical stores. The retailer has yet to identify 19 of them.

"Our primary focus in 2017 has been to continue the strong growth of digital and mobile, stabilize our brick & mortar business and set the foundation for future growth," Macy's CEO Jeff Gennette said in a statement. "A healthy store base combined with robust digital capabilities is Macy’s recipe for success."

The December overhaul of the U.S. tax code that slashed the top corporate rate to 21 percent from 35 percent will help the century-old chain reach its goals.

Gennette boosted the top end of the Macy's full-year earnings forecast 1.7 percent to $3.69 because of the cut, and the National Retail Federation, a lobbying group for U.S. stores, said the change will ultimately enable the industry to add as many as 1.5 million workers.

"Retailers are winners under tax reform since our industry receives few of the tax breaks that benefit other sectors," federation President Matthew Shay said in a statement. "But the biggest benefit for retailers will come as lower taxes and increased global competitiveness help U.S. companies throughout the economy put more Americans to work and pay them higher wages."

The tax bill also offered a break to individuals, who will probably spend about a third of the windfall, further buoying retailers, Meyer said. "You could see a nice spurt of consumer spending in the second and third quarters," she noted.