HIGH-street retailers are struggling to recruit staff due to increased competition from the growing number of holiday superstores opening up throughout the UK.
Each superstore employs around 50 staff and offer higher salaries than traditional high-street agents.
There are now 16 Holiday Hypermarkets open while Going Places and Thomas Cook have opened their first superstores and are expanding the concept.
Speaking at the Travel ’99 recruitment show at Olympia, sponsored by Travel Weekly, Going Places recruitment advisor Barry Swann said the Holiday Hypermarkets had led to a higher turnover of staff.
“The Hypermarkets have made recruitment more difficult. There are probably no more vacancies than in the past, but because the Hypermarkets are pulling people in, there is constant staff movement.”
Thomas Cook human resource manager Linda Bailey, who is responsible for recruiting staff for the Thomas Cook Plus superstores, said: “They soak up a lot of staff.”
Three sites have already opened and two more will be launched in Leeds and Liverpool by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Lunn Poly personnel officer Miriam Coller said job seekers who looked promising were being urged to fill in application forms at the show so they would not go home and forget. “We are having to do the chasing,” she added.
Coller said another problem was the number of students visiting the show who had no work experience.
Co-op Travelcare personnel officer Jane Collins agreed. “We are happy to take enthusiastic people with some experience who we can train up, but we are limited on the numbers of students we can employ. It is difficult to recruit people in all areas. There seem to be fewer people coming into the retail sector. Ithink they are looking for jobs as cabin crew or with tour operators.”
Travel ’99 was part of employment fair Opportunities ’99, which attracted 4,821 visitors.