Retailers John Lewis and Waitrose are planning to hire more than 10,000 temporary workers across the UK as they get ready for Christmas. The jobs will be in stores as well as in the distribution network.
The John Lewis Partnership, which owns the brands, will be recruiting 4,000 festive roles across 331 Waitrose supermarkets. Jobs will include store assistants, night workers and delivery drivers.
At 34 John Lewis stores, there will be 2,000 temp jobs in sales and merchandising, reports the Mirror.
Anyone interested can register at jlpjobs.com/Christmas, with jobs going live throughout September and October. Some permanent roles will be advertised too.
The John Lewis Partnership is also hiring 4,000 staff in its supply chain via recruitment agencies. These roles include warehouse workers and drivers. More details on how to apply is here.
John Lewis Partnership chief operations officer Andrew Murphy said: "We are looking forward to welcoming people across the country to grow our team and ensure we deliver a great Christmas for our customers.”
The firm will also be giving out free food to all its full-time workers, known as partners, as well as temporary workers. The giveaway is meant to help with the cost of living, and will run from October 3 to January 6.
Waitrose is scrapping "best before" dates on nearly 500 products as part of its plans to tackle food waste. The supermarket instead wants customers to use their own judgement about when food has gone off.
Waitrose will remove the “best before” dates from September on items including packaged fruit and vegetables. The move is expected to eliminate millions of baskets worth of food waste, the retailer said.
It comes after rival Marks & Spencer announced it will axe "best before" dates from more than 300 fruit and vegetable products last month. Morrisons announced plans in January to remove "use by" dates on milk and encourage consumers to use a "sniff test" instead.
Tesco got rid of the dates on more than 100 fresh food products in 2018. "Best before" dates are about the quality of food, while "use by" dates are used to show when a product is no longer safe to eat.
Waitrose is also planning to close two stores, putting almost 200 jobs at risk. Shops in Newcastle (Eldon Square) and Croydon have both been earmarked for closure following "challenging" trading conditions.
The possible closures would affect 123 people in the Newcastle store and 70 staff members in Croydon. As well as statutory redundancy payments, partners are entitled to Partnership redundancy pay - this equates to two weeks’ pay for every year of service, regardless of age.
If partners have been working there for less than one year, they will receive a tax-free payment equivalent to one week’s contractual pay. For anyone who has been working at the supermarket for two years, or who is made redundant, the supermarket is offering a Retraining Fund.
