Dollar General faces tougher hiring as foreign job-seeker interest falls

Dollar General’s hiring problem may get harder before it gets better. Indeed Hiring Lab said foreign job-seeker interest in U.S. postings fell to a six-year low in April 2026, with clicks from abroad down to 1.4 percent, a sign that one of retail’s broader labor pipelines is thinning just as stores and warehouses still depend on it.

That matters for the people already on the clock. Dollar General runs 20,594 stores across the United States and Mexico and 1,063 distribution-related facilities, including 17 distribution centers, 56 fresh distribution centers, 79 combination distribution centers and 8 regional hub distribution centers. In a network that large, even small hiring slowdowns can mean slower relief for lean teams, more pressure on store managers to patch schedules, and more overtime for workers who are already covering gaps on nights, weekends and high-turnover shifts.

The labor data point in the same direction. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said the foreign-born unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in 2025, and foreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to hold service jobs and work in production, transportation and material-moving roles, the same kinds of jobs that keep discount retail and distribution running. BLS said foreign-born workers made up 19.1 percent of the civilian labor force, and nearly half of that labor force, 47.3 percent, was Hispanic or Latino. For employers like Dollar General, that makes immigration-linked hiring changes operational, not abstract.

Dollar General has already shown how costly staffing and safety problems can be. In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, the company said SG&A expenses rose as a percentage of net sales, and retail labor was one of the expense lines that ran higher. The company also reached a corporate-wide settlement with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on July 11, 2024, agreeing to pay $12 million and add safety managers, employee safety training, a safety committee and annual unannounced audits. OSHA said blocked exits, access to fire extinguishers and electrical panels, and improper material storage generally had to be corrected within 48 hours.

The immigration piece adds another layer. Early 2025 reporting said Dollar General told store managers to let Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents speak with employees or customers if they appeared at stores, a reminder that workplace immigration policy can affect morale and whether workers feel comfortable staying. Dollar General’s own diversity materials say diverse teams are a strategic advantage and that the business should reflect the communities it serves. If foreign job-seeker interest keeps sliding, the pressure will land first on the people already trying to keep stores open, shelves stocked and shifts covered.