Wanted: Thousands of jobless to prop up food stores
SUPERMARKETS announced yesterday that they were urgently recruiting thousands more staff to cope with unprecedented demand following the coronavirus outbreak.
While thousands of people in retailing, the hospitality industry and other sectors have been laid off, supermarkets are scrambling to hire workers to help stock shelves and deliver food to desperate customers.
Supermarket aisles have been stripped bare by shoppers panic buying at all the major stores as the crisis has deepened this week.
Yesterday Morrisons, Iceland, Tesco, Lidl and the Co-op said they all needed to urgently hire both temporary and permanent staff if they were to meet demand.
The Co-op said 5,000 temporary and permanent roles were being created, while Morrisons announced it would be recruiting around 2,500 pickers and drivers, plus another 1,000 staff in its distribution centres.
Adverts for temporary stock assistant jobs, offering four-week contracts at Lidl stores in Bristol and elsewhere in South-West England appeared on Facebook.
Meanwhile, cereal giant Kellogg’s said it too was looking for additional workers to increase production at its Manchester factory after sales of Corn Flakes, Crunchy Nut, Coco Pops and Rice Krispies surged.
Jo Whitfield, chief executive of Co-op Food, said it had simplified recruitment procedures so candidates could walk in and apply at their nearest store with a view to starting work in a matter of days.
‘Whilst our store and depot colleagues are working around the clock to ensure people have the essentials they need, we are all too aware that many people who work in bars, pubs and restaurants are out of work,’ she said.
‘It makes perfect sense for us to try and temporarily absorb part of this skilled and talented workforce who are so adept at delivering great customer service, as we work together to feed the nation.
‘To anyone in this position who is looking for a job in one of our stores, our message is simple: please get in touch.’
The increased recruitment comes with a wave of measures including closing 24-hour stores overnight to re-stock shelves, limiting quantities of some or all items sold to each customer and introducing hours where only the vulnerable can shop. David Potts, chief executive of Morrisons, added: ‘These measures will support our very hard-working colleagues, enable us to provide more food to more people in their homes and create opportunities for people whose jobs are affected by the coronavirus.’
Supermarkets have seen a huge rise in demand for delivery services, with no online slots available for weeks at all the major chains.
Ocado said it had suspended taking orders for ‘a few days’ in order to recode its website to cope with panic buying. The online supermarket said it had processed 100 times its normal transaction levels and that demand had been ‘greater in one day than in a normal week’.