Walmart says it will give extra work hours to employees during the holiday season.

Walmart is taking an unconventional approach to seasonal hiring this year by doing away with the longtime tradition of recruiting — and training — thousands of temporary workers for the holiday crush.

Instead, the world’s largest retailer says it will dole out extra holiday work to its existing employees.

“These extra hours will help staff traditional roles like cashier and stocker, and newly created positions such as personal shoppers and pickup associates,” Judith McKenna, chief operating officer for Walmart U.S., said in a statement. “This is what working in retail is all about, and we know our associates have the passion to do even more this year.”

Walmart employees and labor advocacy groups say the move could help address long-standing complaints among workers who say they are underemployed. Many part-time employees, they said, would like full-time work. Walmart considers 34 hours a week full time, when workers receive more benefits.

But, they added, the new policy also raises a number of questions: Will employees be forced to take on extra hours? Will they be penalized if they take time off during the holidays?

“The struggle to get enough hours has been the number one issue angering associates,” said Dan Schlademan, a spokesman for OUR Walmart, an employee group backed by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. “We’ve never been able to understand why Walmart continues hiring seasonal workers when their are so many people begging them for more hours.”

Retailers have long relied on seasonal workers to get through the holidays. But with the U.S. unemployment rate nearing a 16-year low, economists say it is getting harder to attract temporary workers for jobs that typically pay low wages.

Walmart, meanwhile, says its new policy will benefit its employees by allowing them to take on up to 40 hours a week during the holidays. The company quietly tried a similar approach last year, which it says was well received by employees and customers. The year before, it hired 60,000 seasonal workers.

Economists and labor experts said the approach also made financial sense for Walmart, which has 1 million hourly workers at its U.S. stores. Even if the company ends up having to pay overtime to some of those employees, it is likely to have saved thousands of dollars on recruiting, hiring and training temporary workers.