A number of major retailers have recently announced the drastic increase in hiring that they will be doing for this holiday season. In total, around 700,000 temporary positions will be added, which will help the economy for a short period of time during the third quarter of this year. The number of positions that will be available during this holiday season is actually an increase from the previous year of 2011. Macy’s is just one of several major retailers that will be hiring thousands of seasonal employees, totaling to around 80,000 seasonal retail employees in total. This is an increase of approximately 1.2 percent for Macy’s from the previous year of 2011. Other major retailers, including Wal-Mart, Kohl’s, and Toys R Us are expecting to bring in more employees during this holiday season, increasing hiring levels by a total of 10%.

While a number of different major retailers are seeing an increase in the amount of people they are hiring during this holiday season from the previous holiday season, Target is one major retailer that is actually going to see a decline in hiring from the previous year. The estimates for Target’s hiring this year is between 80,000 and 90,000 employees while last year, the major retailer hired a total of 92,000 employees for seasonal positions. Best Buy is also another major retailer that will be seeing a decline in hiring during this year’s holiday season.

The CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, John Challenger, spoke about the hiring outlook, stating that there has been some growth with the number of seasonal positions made available, which is definitely good news and something that people should feel optimistic about. More people are feeling a bit more comfortable with spending money which is part of the reason that more people need to be hired during this holiday season as well. Challenger says, “The economy has continued its slow recovery.” He also aid, “1.8 million more Americans are at work this year than last, which means more discretionary income, but maybe more importantly people are also slowly digging themselves out of the debt hole after the recession, freeing up resources for a return to spending.”

According to Challenger, anyone who is currently interested in finding seasonal employment should start applying for different positions as soon as possible. Many of these major retailers have already started the hiring process and are reviewing applications at this very moment. These kinds of seasonal positions tend to fill at a very quick pace so it is often a first come, first served basis. Anyone in need of employment could benefit from filling out an application immediately.