If you’re looking for work in the home improvement industry, Home Depot and Lowe’s have got your number.

Home Depot announced Wednesday it will be hiring 2,000 permanent part-time and seasonal positions at the company’s Southern California stores and distribution centers. Openings are available for everything from sales associates and freight receiving personnel to other jobs in operations and online order fulfillment.

The busy season

Local hiring is part of the company’s push to bring on 80,000 additional workers to keep pace with the retail chain’s busiest selling season, which runs from late March to late June.

Home Depot’s hiring spree comes on the heels of a similar announcement Lowe’s made last month. Lowe’s plans to hire 53,000 part-time and full-time seasonal employees nationwide, including 1,500 in Southern California.

“Spring is when homeowners typically start doing more projects,” Home Depot spokesman Stephen Stokes said. “It’s when they think about buying products to beautify their homes.”

Sales of mulch, plants, patio furniture, grills and other outdoor products ramp fast up this time of year, according to Stokes.

“It gets crazy,” he said. “And then we have other people who just like walking through our stores and finding things they didn’t think they needed.”

How to apply

Job seekers who are interested in Home Depot’s openings can apply at careers.homedepot.com. They can also text HOMEDEPOT to 52270 and get a link to apply for hourly positions in their area.

The company’s website shows six openings are available at Home Depot’s Monrovia store. The positions include a customer sales associate in the kitchen/bath area, a cashier, a store-support worker, lot associate and customer service representative.

Another store in Anaheim has seven openings for positions in merchandising, freight/receiving and customer service, among others. And a Pomona location has seven openings for such positions as lot associate, freight/receiving and merchandising.

What the jobs pay

Home Depot didn’t reveal how much the various jobs pay, but website PayScale.com shows the average hourly rate for someone working in the kitchen/bath department is $15.76. Sales associates earn an average of $10.70 an hour and merchandising supervisors earn about $14.78 an hour. Those rates can vary, however, depending upon a person’s experience.

Home Depot has 2,283 stores companywide, including 232 in California. The company also operates 13 California distribution centers in such locations as La Mirada, Ontario, Redlands and Mira Loma.

The big picture

Data from research firm IBISWorld show home improvement stores were expected to generate $182.5 billion in revenue between 2012 and 2017 at a yearly growth rate of 5.2 percent. The data further show that Home Depot and Lowe’s were expected to generate more than 80 percent of last year’s total industry revenue.

“Home Depot and Lowe’s took advantage of economies of scale and opened stores while many smaller industry players closed their doors,” the report said. Home Depot has captured 44.5 percent of the industry’s market share, while Lowe’s has 35.9 percent, IBISWorld reported.