Dive Brief:

• Lowe's on Thursday announced it plans to hire more than 53,000 full-time, part-time and seasonal workers this spring, according to a company press release. 

• Hiring events will occur over the next three months with the first ones taking place Jan. 8 in Florida, Southern California, Hawaii, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Alabama and Georgia, where spring typically arrives earlier than the rest of the country. Lowe's will host additional events on Jan. 15, Feb. 5, Feb. 19 and March 4. 

• The seasonal positions include cashiers, lawn and garden associates, stockers and loaders. Lowe's said that about 50% of seasonal hires transitioned to permanent roles in 2019.

Dive Insight:

While the country is just under two weeks into the winter season, Lowe's already has its sights set on warmer days. 

"Spring is the busiest season for home improvement projects," Jennifer Weber, Lowe's executive vice president of human resources, said in a statement. "As part of our strategy to better serve customers and operate our stores more efficiently, these hiring events will help us build the right teams at the right times across the U.S. to meet customer demand as they plan for spring."

The announcement comes after the home improvement retailer in August reportedly told "thousands" of store-level associates it was eliminating their positions, including maintenance staff and workers who assembled retail products. Prior to this, the company said that as of February, it employed about 190,000 full-time and 110,000 part-time associates.

CEO Marvin Ellison, who arrived to the retailer in 2018 from J.C. Penney, has spent his tenure thus far making big changes at Lowe's. In 2018 he eliminated the COO, chief customer officer, corporate administration executive and chief development officer from his executive team and shifted responsibilities to other senior executives. Ellison has also been looking for ways to cut costs at Lowe's, moving to shutter underperforming stores, including exiting its Mexico operations and shuttering its Orchard Supply Hardware business.

As part of the hiring initiative, Lowe's is also looking to fill full-time and part-time associates for several positions, including department supervisors, sales specialists and pro customer service associates, the latter of which may prove especially beneficial to the retailer. Lowe's has shifted its focus recently to focus more on growing its professional customer base, which accounts for about 23% of total group sales and spend about 5.5 times more than the average customer, according to GlobalData Retail's Managing Director Neil Saunders. But it's also an area that has tended to lag behind that of its larger rival Home Depot.