Holiday Hiring Strongest In 14 Years

The holiday hiring market is off to a great start and could lead to more full-time jobs.

Despite earlier prognostications that temporary seasonal jobs would not be as plentiful as last year, the retail industry added 159,000 jobs in October. That’s a 6.7 percent increase from a year ago and the highest number of new hires in the first month of the annual holiday hiring period since 1999, according to an analysis of Bureau Labor Statistics data by global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

Even more encouraging: Nearly half of employers hiring seasonal workers plan to transition some of them into permanent staff, according to CareerBuilder’s annual survey of 2,100 employers. This is a 10 percent increase from 2012 levels – good news for America’s 11.3 million unemployed.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.