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Stores hiring for holiday season amid almost record low unemployment

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 There are job postings for Toys-R-Us, Meijer, Kohl's and many stores in malls and around Jackson and Lansing.

A representative from Kohl's says hiring for Black Friday has to be done by the end of this week for the employees to be ready for the big shopping day.

Stores are battling against an unemployment rate of 3.3 percent in Lansing/ East Lansing and 4.1 percent in Jackson (rates are from September data). That's why one Target hiring manager says she started looking for people early.

"We've been hiring since the end of September so we have almost everybody we need so far," Kali Berry said. She says Target has been offering more money and other benefits to bring the people they need in, especially for the holiday season.

"We have a lot of fringe benefits like free food and other stuff over the holidays to kind of bring people to us," Berry said. "We did a staffing event, I think we hired like 15 people that weekend, so that was something new that we did that we haven't always done in the past either."

Berry says Target, like a lot of retailers, has also added new ways to get products to customers, like shipping directly from the store and that means they have had to hire more people to work those jobs.

"It gets to our guests a little quicker and gives us more opportunities to hire team members to do that role," she said.

For information on upcoming job fairs and hiring events, you can visit Pure Michigan's Talent Connect calendar.