Home improvement retail chain Home Depot is set to give significant boost to job creation in the economy, hiring over 60000 seasonal associates to cope with the demands of a busy spring season and the annual Spring Black Friday promotion event.

Recruitments would be made across markets and the new recruits trained over the months of February and March.

Spring Black Friday marks the commencement of the busiest season in home improvement retail; it is usually implemented on a market-by-market basis, based on climate and geography. During four different weekends in spring, prices on hundreds of the most popular spring products are significantly reduced, attracting a huge rush from consumers. The new associates will be trained to meet this surge of demand and activity.

Additionally, the retailer has also announced that it will add new part time and full time positions in its stores, though it failed to put a number on such positions.

The Company currently employs more than 300,000 associates to man over 2200 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces, Mexico and China. It also plans to open 10 new stores in fiscal 2011.

With U.S. unemployment continuing to prevail at a stubborn 9 percent and above, economists have been closely following retail sales to gauge the movement of the economy; while sales have not particularly been inspiring overall in January, some segments saw positive trends, such as large department-store chains and some specialty shops which benefited from post-holiday sales events before winter storms kicked in later in the month. Now the upcoming spring season would be eagerly looked forward to, especially in the home segment. As Craig Menear, executive vice president for Merchandising at home Depot said, "Spring is our Christmas and traffic is at its highest during this season." 

To contact the editor, e-mail: