November's same-store sales were released yesterday, and retailer's results were far from overwhelming. The International Council of Shopping Centers says sales overall were actually down 0.8% year over year for the month.Dow Jones has a pretty comprehensive list of individual retailer performance, and there are a lot of duds. Saks plunged 26.1%. Abercrombie & Fitch fell 17%. Children's Place dropped 13%.The winners were pretty predictable, for the most part. Discounters Ross Stores and TJX Cos. were both up 8%. On the specialty apparel front Gap was flat (good results for it) and Aeropostale rose 7%. A nice surprise was Nordstrom's 2.2% increase.This isn't exactly a great start to the holidays and makes us wonder if reports of a bounce back this year were a little premature. We're betting a turnaround in the job picture is needed to help retail sales improve. What's your solution?