Home Depot plans to hire thousands for spring

Canadian stores adding fewer seasonal employees than 2014

NEW YORK— Home Depot Inc. says it has started to hire thousands of seasonal workers for its U.S. and Canadian stores during the spring selling season, the busiest time of the year for home improvement retailers.

In the United States, the company will hire more than 80,000 seasonal workers — about the same as last year.

Home Depot Canada, by contrast, has announced it will hire 5,500 people for operational and sales positions this spring — down from 6,300 associates it was looking for a year ago. A Home Depot spokesman told The Associated Press that the hiring levels aren’t an indication of the business environment or what the company sees for the spring season, but more about its needs.

Tim Crow, executive vice-president of human resources for the Atlantabased company, also said more than half of Home Depot’s spring seasonal workers stay on with the company.

“It gives us the ability to get a whole new wave of folks to join our team,” Crow said.

For most retailers, the holiday shopping season, which spans November to December, is their busiest season. But for Home Depot and its rivals, the biggest sales come in the spring as shoppers spruce up their lawns and work on their homes.

This year, its Canadian stores may feel the impact of a big drop in oil prices, which is expected to hurt oilproducing provinces, but help other areas of the country.