While the pace of announced workforce reductions is about 40% ahead of last year, a surprising new report shows that, through September, employers have already announced plans to hire more workers than they did in all of 2008.

The report released Monday by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas indicates that some employers feel confident enough about the prospects of the recovery to begin adding workers, albeit slowly. Through September, employers have announced plans to hire 169,385 workers this year, according to Challenger's tracking. That is 88% more than the 89,924 planned hires announced in the first three quarters of 2008. The 2009 nine-month total has, in fact, already surpassed the 2008 year-end total of 118,600.

Surprisingly, most of the hiring plans announced this year have come from employers in the retail sector, which has struggled amid falling consumer spending. These employers announced plans to hire 33,640 workers, compared to less than 4,000 in all of 2008. The biggest hiring sector behind retail is the government and nonprofit sector, which has plans to add 28,469 workers. It is followed by the entertainment and leisure industry, which is adding 22,370 new workers.