It’s not all doom and gloom on the retail high street

Shopworkers’ union, Usdaw, welcomes the announcements of new jobs to be created in some of the major retail food companies this year.

Tesco is creating 10,000 across the UK business, Morrisons over 5,000, Sainsbury’s up to 4,000 and Iceland 2,500. New jobs will be established across the Morrisons business including positions such as butchers, fishmongers and bakers. Morrisons will also boost its training programme which aims to train 18,000 employees in its first year. Morrisons’ announcement comes only days after Sainsbury’s announced that it intends to recruit up to 4,000 new staff this year and will keep on about 2,000 of the temporary Christmas staff.

Iceland stores have also just bought 51 of the former Woolworths stores which will create 2,500 jobs.

Usdaw General Secretary John Hannett commented:

“Usdaw is delighted by the plans of these major retailers to create these new jobs in 2009. We are also pleased that Iceland stores have stepped in to buy 51 of the Woolworths stores.

These are really good news stories at a time when job losses, many in retail, are announced on an almost daily basis. Even though we are going through challenging economic times, it’s clearly not all doom and gloom on the retail high street.

Usdaw urges all retailers to look at these examples of business expansion. At this difficult time, retailers mustn’t panic and rush in to make redundancies as their staff are their greatest asset and the Union will always encourage companies to take a long term view. Retailers will not want to lose experienced and trained staff.

The recession is worrying news but it may not be as bad as some people fear. All employers need to take the long-term view and protect as many jobs as possible through this economic downturn.”

Notes to Editors:

• Contacts for newsdesks: Usdaw’s Media Officer, Cherry Hamilton, can be contacted on 0161 249 2469 or e-mail cherry.hamilton@usdaw.org.uk
• Usdaw (the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) is the UK’s fourth biggest trade union, with over 369,000 members. Most Usdaw members work in the retail sector, but the union also has many members in transport, distribution, food manufacturing, chemicals and other trades.
• More information and news releases are available at our online Newsroom.
• Subscribe/unsubscribe to Usdaw news releases via our online e-news service at: http://www.usdaw.org.uk/site/email.html

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