The UK’s top retailers will increasingly turn to online recruitment during
the next year to help fill 100,000 new jobs in the sector.
The annual Retail Trends Survey reveals that more than 90 per cent of the
UK’s top 50 retailers plan to use the internet to help recruit staff over the
next 12 months to fill the growing number of job vacancies and combat
increasing staff turnover.
The study finds that staff turnover has reached its highest levels ever at
65 per cent among shopfloor workers, 27 per cent at store manager level and 15
per cent at head office.
It shows that retailers are increasingly looking to the internet as
traditional recruitment tactics fail to deliver the required number of
candidates.
Peter Burgess of recruitment firm Retail Human Resources, which carried out
the research, said a combination of wage inflation, recruitment blackspots and
increased competition with the public sector was leading retailers to the web.
The researched companies identified the South East, the home counties and
London as the hardest areas to recruit. Almost a third of respondents predicted
it would be more difficult to recruit staff this year.
Mike Cutt, HR director at B&Q, said recruitment methods were changing
because of high growth, low unemployment and a more customer-oriented public
sector.
"We create around 1,000 management jobs a year and are growing at 15
per cent. We have switched all management recruitment online. As a sector, it
is getting harder because we are all fishing from the same pond," he said.
By Ross Wigham
