With two months to the day from Halloween, numbers are beginning to surface around the number of temporary retail workers expected to be hired.

The Sacramento Bee is suggesting the specialist store Halloween City is due to take on up to 12,000 new staff, including management roles. The retailer has an online presence and will open over 400 temporary high street stores shortly.

Local paper the Muncie Free Press reports that leisure retailer Party City, which operates over 750 stores, will hire an additional 20,000 employees, again including at management roles.

Both brands are owned by Amscan Holdings, and in both cases share one interesting bit of induction training. New staff will undergo a “specialised training programme to gain Halloween costume product knowledge”.

Temporary workers less interested in novelty clothing need not worry, however, as Ohio news channel WKYC notes that a local apple orchard Mapleside Farms is seeking 40 people to portray the living undead as part of an upcoming Halloween attraction in which guests shoot zombies with paintballs. A thick skin needed, presumably.