Holiday hiring heats up - thanks to widespread layoffs

Updated

If you were thinking about getting a little part-time job to help pay the holiday bills, think again. Thanks (or no thanks) to the huge number of layoffs, these jobs are suddenly in high demand.

According to the Associated Press, a combination of a sudden consumer spending freeze with more applicants than normal have retailers fielding more applicants than they have seasonal jobs for.

Former professionals, now unemployed, are vying for these low-wage, no benefit gigs with the more usual applicant: high school kids or housewives. If a white-collar exec is desperate enough to take a part-time job paying $8.50-an-hour, who's the retailer going to hire? The kid with no experience who may or may not show up in the morning or the professional?

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