Lowe's announced in a press release Friday that it planned to hire more than 65,000 associates in 2019 to improve customer service and product availability.
More than 50,000 of the positions will be seasonal and will be available beginning mid-January for certain locations. In addition, 10,000 permanent associate positions will be available as part of a Merchandising Service Team focused on inventory management.
Six-thousand full-time assistant store manager and department supervisor roles will also become available, along with 2,000 technology related roles, such as software engineer, data scientists and other digital positions.
"We are sharpening our focus on retail fundamentals and simplifying our business," said Lowe's president and CEO Marvin R. Ellison in the statement.
While the company plans to hire in several divisions, it announced plans to discontinue the Project Specialist Interiors program.
This year's hiring announcement is similar to last year's, which occurred around the same time. In January 2018, the company said it planned to hire more than 53,000 staffers, CNBC reported.
The announcement also comes nearly two months after Lowe's said it would close 51 underperforming stores: 20 in the U.S. and 31 stores in Canada. The stores were scheduled to be closed by February 1, according to USA Today.
