ROCKAWAY, N.J. — Party City is banking on a frightfully festive Halloween season, with plans to hire 20,000 temporary workers.
That figure represents roughly 3,000 more workers than the Rockaway, New Jersey-based revelry store brought on to handle the 2021 surge, KVIA-TV reported, indicating Party City brass anticipate an uptick in foot traffic as pandemic-era restrictions vanish faster than bowls of candy marked “take one.”
“There’s been a lot of pent-up demand, and people are so ready to celebrate,” Odette Welling, vice president of merchandising at Party City, told CNN.
According to KVIA, new positions – including team leaders, supervisors, sales and stock associates and cashiers – will be available in more than 750 Party City retail stores nationwide and in 150 Halloween City pop-up locations.
The chain, which specializes in sales of themed party decorations, costumes, clothing and other products, plans to increase the number of pop-ups opened in 2022, boosting the need for additional staff, CNN reported.
According to the company, between 10% and 15% of the seasonal hires will be offered permanent positions at the season’s end, KVIA reported.
Meanwhile. Welling told CNN that, to date, a 7-foot animatronic talking lava demon with fog effect and an animatronic zombie raccoon that pops out of a trash can, are the most popular decorative items among early shoppers.