Home Depot set to hire 100,000 new workers

ATLANTA — Over the next three months, Home Depot will hire more than 100,000 workers nationally, including more than 6,400 people in metro Atlanta, company officials said this week.

A burst of hiring is a spring routine for the huge company, as do-it-yourselfers and professional contractors start new projects. But the surge will be 20% higher than normal because of dramatic growth during the pandemic in both online and in-store sales, Eric Schelling, vice president of global talent acquisition, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“It is the consumer demand that is driving our hiring counts,” he said. “It’s online and in stores, and it’s the distribution network where we are hiring for distribution centers.”

That ambitious hiring comes as many employers complain of trouble finding qualified applicants. About 10.9 million jobs are open nationally, roughly twice as many as the number of officially unemployed workers, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Schelling said Home Depot has not had trouble filling positions. Starting wages differ from location to location, but the company offers the chance to move up, as well as good benefits and flexibility, so those hired can stay on after the spring rush, he said.

“But if you want a seasonal role, great,” he added.

To fill the slots, Home Depot is holding a virtual hiring event on Feb. 16 that will include talks from a series of executives, including Crystal Hanlon, who began as a cashier and is now president of the company’s northern division.

The company said job seekers are encouraged, but not required, to apply for jobs ahead of the event on careers.homedepot.com.

In its most recent fiscal year, Home Depot reported revenues of $132.1 billion, more than any other Georgia company. It will report results from its current fiscal year in a few weeks.

Home Depot has 90 stores and about 30,000 employees in Georgia. Overall, the company has about 500,000 employees at 2,317 stores, most of them in the United States.

A majority of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Home Depot store, according to the company.

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