Seasonal hiring set to give C.O. a jobs boost

Though Halloween is still weeks away, local retailers are already getting into the holiday spirit.

“Towards the end of the season, I do another round of hiring and end up with a lot because, as busy as we get, it takes a lot of people to keep the store running,” Nova King, manager of the Bend Spirit costume store, said Wednesday.

The Black Friday mania that marks the start of the Christmas shopping season doesn’t hit for another two months, but now is the time stores staff up for the holidays.

“We’ve got about 30 positions that we’ll staff through the end of the season,” said Jamie Bucey, store team leader at Target in Bend. “And that’s throughout the store, like cashiers, store team members and back room, things like that.”

‘Tis the season to get a job, and some employers say they plan to have their holiday hiring wrapped up as soon as October.

“The earlier we can hire, the more time we have to train our team members for the holiday seasons,” Bucey said.

Some of the big national businesses are hiring across the country right now. FedEx is adding 50,000 seasonal employees. Kohls announced it will be hiring 67,000 people and UPS said it’s looking to hire 95,000 people this holiday season.

I’s only September — so it might seem like stores are hiring more people and earlier in the season.

Is it a sign of a better, even booming economy?

“The jobs that we are seeing being advertised now are just normal growth that businesses are asking for,” said Damon Runberg, Central Oregon regional economist.

“The encouraging thing is, when we look at those underlying trends and account for the fact that we always see hiring that occurs for these seasonal positions, what’s actually happening? Well, the line is going up. The number of jobs we are seeing in Central Oregon is going up,” Runberg said.

Seasonal or not, businesses are hiring. Jobs are out there. So i’s shaping up to be a happy holiday for job-seekers.

“Even if it’s a part-time thing where you can get that extra money in the fourth quarter like Christmas presents, all of those great things that are happening,” Bucey said.

Runberg said if Central Oregon stays on this hiring trend, by sometime next summer, we’ll have recovered all the jobs lost in the recession in Deschutes County.