Sainsbury's to hire 20,000 at Christmas

The supermarket’s expansion comes on top of 2,300 jobs it is creating in the north of England and Scotland by next summer

Sainsbury’s is to recruit up to 20,000 people over Christmas and new year – the largest number of temporary staff the supermarket chain has ever taken on.

Of these 20,000 seasonal workers, at least 1,000 will be retained in permanent positions, the company said today. This comes on top of 2,300 jobs that Sainsbury’s is creating in the north of England and Scotland by next summer.

Last year, Britain’s third-largest supermarket group, which has 817 stores and 150,000 staff, took on about 12,000 seasonal workers during Christmas.

Helen Webb, Sainsbury’s director of retail human resources, said: “Last year nearly 23 million shoppers visited Sainsbury’s stores in the week before Christmas and the huge numbers of customers means that our in-store colleagues always have something different to do.”

The supermarkets continue to hire staff as they expand their non-food ranges, in contrast to most other sectors of the economy where unemployment has shot up.

Tesco, Britain’s largest retailer, announced last week that it was creating more than 800 jobs in Scotland as it expands into financial services.

Morrisons, the country’s fourth-largest grocery chain, said it would take on 7,000 people this year.

sourced from The Guardian

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Retail sales 'continue to rise'

Retail sales rose again in July, as the wet weather lifted demand for furniture and homeware goods, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has said.

The BRC said last month’s rain boosted furniture sales

 

UK-wide like-for-like sales – which pulls out the impact of new store openings – increased by 1.8% last month compared with July 2008.

This was a bigger increase than the 1.4% rise reported for June.

However, the BRC cautioned that rising unemployment was preventing a wider return of consumer confidence.

‘Home improvements’

Sales of furniture and homewares saw their biggest year-on-year growth in three years during July, although the BRC said this was against a very low base in July 2008, and lifted by extensive discounting.

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Sainsbury's to boost Scots jobs

Sainsbury’s has announced plans to expand in Scotland, creating 1,300 jobs by next summer.

The new posts will be created through new stores at Strathaven in Lanarkshire and Prestwick, in Ayrshire, and the extension of existing shops.

Sainsbury’s also said the move would give Scottish suppliers more opportunities to sell their produce.

Sainsbury’s has embarked on a nationwide expansion Supermarket giant

The announcement came amid a drive by the company to open 150 convenience stores by 2010-11.

read full article at recession2009 – Food

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Sales soar at Primark

Primark sales sour over the Christmas period. As the rest of the high street suffer Primark sales increase.

Article

Primark has enjoyed another successful Christmas, with sales soaring by more than a fifth as its cut-price chic continued to appeal to shoppers.

Parent company Associated British Foods said today that total sales at the fashion store rose by 21% in the final 16 weeks of last year.

The sharp rise was partly attributed to Primark opening six new stores during the year, but the group said like-for-like sales growth, which excludes new space, was “very strong” at around 4%.

Primark’s performance provides further evidence that shoppers are becoming increasingly thrifty as the recession hammers consumer confidence – a trend that sent clothing sales falling sharply at Marks & Spencer.

Primark fired several suppliers in 2008 following allegations that they were using child labour. But this week, allegations emerged that one of its UK suppliers was subjecting its workers to sweatshop conditions, with illegal immigrants receiving just half the minimum wage for 12-hour days, seven days a week.

read full article sourced from the Guardian

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