means The act of taking someone on for paid work — selecting a person from candidates and bringing them into a job.

from From the verb 'hire,' which goes back to Old English 'hyrian,' to engage someone for wages, tied to the noun 'hyr' meaning payment or rent. It shares deep Germanic roots, with cousins like Dutch 'huren' and German 'heuern' (to hire, often a ship's crew). The '-ing' simply turns the act of paying-for-labor into the ongoing process of doing so — the same root that still lets you 'hire' a car or a hall, not just a human.