Related Articles
Retailers, supermarkets and Royal Mail are hunting for almost 100,000 temporary staff to see them through Christmas, amid fears that many will struggle to fill the roles.
Tesco and Royal Mail today officially kicked off their festive recruitment campaigns. Tesco is seeking 30,000 temporary staff, with half the roles already filled by extending the contract of staff brought on during the pandemic. Royal Mail is after 20,000 seasonal workers to deal with the annual spike in Christmas cards, presents and other festive deliveries.
The jobs push follows similar announcements from other major retailers. Sainsbury’s is hunting 22,000 Christmas workers, Amazon is recruiting 20,000, John Lewis Partnership hopes to add 7,000 seasonal staff, Morrisons is on the hunt for 3,000 temps, and Aldi is after 1,500.
In total, major retailers have so far announced plans to hire around 100,000 seasonal workers across the sector. The figure is likely to be higher when other smaller retailers are factored in, with more announcements likely in the coming weeks.
There are fears that companies could struggle to fill the roles. The UK already has more than 1 million open jobs across the country. Companies are struggling to hire workers after many overseas workers left during the pandemic. Many seasonal workers who used to come from Europe have also been put off by Brexit.
“Demand for workers continued to grow last month, while staff availability fell at a near record pace,” said Neil Carberry, chief executive of REC, said. “Competition for staff has led to rapid growth in starting salaries – not just in logistics and food processing, but in white collar professions as well.”
KPMG and recruitment group REC today published their latest UK jobs report. It found that while growth in the number of vacancies slowed last month, there were still not enough workers to fill all the open positions.
“The continued decline in candidates making themselves available for work is now reaching critical levels and could stop London’s recovery in its tracks before it’s really got underway,” said Anna Purchas at KPMG.
“The skills shortage, exacerbated by Brexit, requires urgent action both from businesses and policy makers. We must re-train and re-skill UK workers if we want to maintain London’s global competitive position.”
The end of the furlough scheme could help to ease pressure in the jobs market, with around 1 million people coming off the scheme and re-entering the jobs market. However, there are fears that many of these workers may have the wrong skills for the jobs on offer.
The retail sector is already grappling with a shortage of HGV drivers, due to a number of factors such as a backlog of driving tests due to the pandemic.
Read More
Sainsbury’s offers £500 bonus to delivery drivers, as thousands of Christmas workers sought
John Lewis owner charters ships as it tackles supply chain headaches before Christmas
Morrisons seeks to hire 3,000 workers ahead of Christmas
Source link
