"Retail Sales Show Unexpected Rebound in January, According to NRF"

So the field of retail did better than expected after the holidays. I saw this on the National Retail Federation website as well as WWD. After the holidays comes nice markdowns that apparently consumers couldn't resist. Even though retail has done well as a whole in the month of January, the question is will this continue?

Hopefully the good sells keep up for a while, but in all honesty I don't see it. Most people want to save their money in this economy. I don't think retailers believe that that kind of business will continue either, that is why most retailers have already started their layoffs. If the sells continue to pick up though, there will be some hope for us. I could possibly have a job when I'm out of school, maybe even before the semester is up. That would be awesome. So I'm going to hope for the best.