MINNEAPOLIS — With one less weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, Target CEO Brian Cornell said every day will count even more than ever this holiday with no expected sales lull in the middle of the season as is often the case in other years.

That’s one reason why the Minneapolis-based retailer is investing an additional $50 million to increase employee hours and training during the holiday shopping season this year. It will beef up staffing during peak hours on the weekends to assist customers and will double the number of employees working on fulfilling online orders in stores.

“This will be our single biggest investment in holiday payroll ever,” Cornell said at the company’s annual holiday preview in New York, though he did not specify how much of an increase this is over last year.

Target had previously disclosed plans to boost holiday hiring this year to more than 130,000 seasonal workers, about 5,500 more than last year. At the same time, Target has been steadily increasing the minimum wage for its hourly workers, lifting it a dollar to $13 an hour in June and has committed to raising it to $15 an hour by the end of next year.

While other retailers are experimenting with bringing robots onto the sales floor, Cornell said customers won’t see that in Target stores anytime soon. “The human touch still really matters,” he said.

In other years when there’s an extra weekend during the holiday shopping season, there’s usually a pause between the surge over Black Friday and then the final rush to Christmas. But without that extra weekend this year, Cornell said he expects there to be a more steady pace of sales this holiday season.

“I think we’re going to see a very consistent rhythm and drumbeat,” he said. “You’re going to see bigger and stronger days through the holiday season.”

Meanwhile, Walmart is responding to the shortened holiday season this year by holding its earliest holiday savings event this weekend — an online sale that launches at midnight Friday with deals on electronics, gaming, toys and sporting goods.

A couple weeks ago, Best Buy guaranteed “Black Friday pricing” to members of its rewards programs for an annual sale of some high-end TVs and home theater systems.