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Instead of the usual holiday tradition of hiring thousands of temporary workers, Walmart will instead be assigning longer hours to current employees, in particular part-time employees, in an attempt to address complaints of underemployment. Not addressed is whether employees will be forced to work longer hours or whether this will affect holiday vacation plans if employees are penalized for taking time off. Economists state that with the unemployment rate remaining low, it is increasingly difficult to hire temporary employees for low-wage positions. Walmart’s competitor, Target, is still planning on hiring at least 100,000 temporary employees, by raising the wage to $11 an hour. Toys R Us, despite filing for bankruptcy last week, still plans to hire 12,000 temporary employees by offering extended employee discounts and offering weekend rate wages during peak holiday times.