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Seasonal hiring a mixed bag – Best Buy takes care of its own first

Posted on October 3rd, 2011 Read time: 1 minutes

Many large retailers have begun announcing their plans for holiday hiring. Seasonal temporary workers are being added in bundles at Macy's and Toys "R" Us, however Best Buy is lagging behind this holiday season.

The electronics retailer stated in a recent release that it will be reducing its seasonal hires in order to "honor requests by current staff for additional hours." Also, it plans to add approximately 200 permanent IT employees, reducing the need for temporary workers.

In all, the chain will add 15,000 associates, and more than double the number of Geek Squad Agents for its online support channel. An additional 3,000 phone support and distribution center workers will be added to provide customer support and manage inventory for in-store and online sales.

Seasonal work at Macy's and Toys "R" Us is more abundant. Macy's plans to increase its number of seasonal hires by 4 percent, while the national toy chain will hire between 35,000 and 45,000 temporary holiday workers – nearly double the number it regularly employs.

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