Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/22/2011 -- Home Depot, the largest home improvement retailer in America, is planning on hiring around 60,000 temporary workers this spring season.

Craig Menear, who is executive vice president of merchandising, said that for Home Depot, “Spring is our Christmas”. This is because for Home Depot, the biggest selling season is from March to mid-June. The retail giant has around 317,000 employees, including about 298,000 temporary of hourly workers as of January 2010. Around 61 percent of the employees were full-time workers.

The hiring is expected to start soon since Home Depot will start its own “Spring Black Friday” in March. The company will also create several as yet unspecified permanent positions.

Rival Lowe’s, the second largest home improvement chain, is also planning to hire 50,000 temporary workers. Retail has traditionally been one of the few sectors, along with construction, which has absorbed large segments of the workforce when other sectors face a downturn.

While construction has still not recovered, retail has been on a hiring spree the last three months. Most of it was supposed to be seasonal for the holiday season but most big-box retailers keep some of the temps as full-time workers.

RetailCrossing, a job aggregator website focusing only on retail industry related jobs has been able to compile over 182,000 jobs so far this month. These 182,000 jobs range from stocker to floor manager and other managerial positions.