Morrisons opening up new stores and new jobs
12 September 2013
Supermarket chain Morrisons is hiring apace, with new branches of the company’s M local convenience stores opening up nationally on a weekly basis.
Thu, 12 Sep 2013Supermarket chain Morrisons is hiring apace, with new branches of the company’s M local convenience stores opening up nationally on a weekly basis.
The news comes as the firm announces turnover of £8.9bn in the half year to 4 August, the same figure as last year, with underlying profit down 10% on the same period in 2012 to a nonetheless sizeable £401m.
The company's results show it had opened 33 M local stores in the year to date at 4 August, with the firm “on track” to have 100 operational by the end of this year. A company spokesperson says the stores employ an average of 20 people, and that with the company “opening so many more each week”, the number of stores is now likely to be somewhere in the mid-40s.
Morrisons are also opening new full-size stores, as well as rebranding existing stores in what it calls its “tailored fresh food proposition”, Fresh Formats.
This comes after the chain’s new head of group resourcing Lindsey Tasker told Recruiter in July, shortly after arriving at the firm: "It’s a really exciting time for the business due to the rapid growth of the convenience store format, as well as the growth of online. The resourcing function will be at the heart of these changes.”
Last week, the firm lent its support to an industry-wide campaign to bring more than 15,000 young people into food and grocery jobs.
Convenience stores are also a priority for rival retailer Sainsbury’s, which said in July that it is planning a major extension of its London and South-East convenience store network, with a further 1,000 shops in the regions. The company already said it would recruit 10,000 people as it looked to meet convenience store demand in late 2012.
The news comes as the firm announces turnover of £8.9bn in the half year to 4 August, the same figure as last year, with underlying profit down 10% on the same period in 2012 to a nonetheless sizeable £401m.
The company's results show it had opened 33 M local stores in the year to date at 4 August, with the firm “on track” to have 100 operational by the end of this year. A company spokesperson says the stores employ an average of 20 people, and that with the company “opening so many more each week”, the number of stores is now likely to be somewhere in the mid-40s.
Morrisons are also opening new full-size stores, as well as rebranding existing stores in what it calls its “tailored fresh food proposition”, Fresh Formats.
This comes after the chain’s new head of group resourcing Lindsey Tasker told Recruiter in July, shortly after arriving at the firm: "It’s a really exciting time for the business due to the rapid growth of the convenience store format, as well as the growth of online. The resourcing function will be at the heart of these changes.”
Last week, the firm lent its support to an industry-wide campaign to bring more than 15,000 young people into food and grocery jobs.
Convenience stores are also a priority for rival retailer Sainsbury’s, which said in July that it is planning a major extension of its London and South-East convenience store network, with a further 1,000 shops in the regions. The company already said it would recruit 10,000 people as it looked to meet convenience store demand in late 2012.
- Click for more on retail recruitment news from recruiter.co.uk, or news of how Morrison’s former HR chief is leading a major independent consultation into zero-hours contracts, which he tells us the firm did not use during his tenure.
