Pick n Pay CEO wants to create '20 new jobs, 5 days a week'

02 August 2015 - 02:00 By ANN CROTTY

Pick n Pay CEO Richard Brasher has undertaken to create 20 jobs every weekday between now and 2020 as the group "expands its ability to serve customers across the country". Although Pick n Pay stores are open seven days a week, its promise of 20 new jobs is based on a five-day working week, equivalent to about 5000 new jobs in its current financial year. In the past year, the group created 3000 new jobs.Addressing shareholders at the AGM this week, Brasher said they were looking for "the right aptitude and the right attitude" from new employees.story_article_left1He said aptitude and attitude were more important than whether a candidate had a top-class degree from the University of Cape Town or no matric.Although its employment plans are encouraging, Pick n Pay has a long way to go before it catches up to Shoprite, whose 123000 employees dwarf Pick n Pay's 49000.Woolworths employed 28 409 in the 2015 financial year, up 39% from 2011.Analysts were hoping for signs of a more aggressive pace of new store openings at Pick n Pay last year as it tried to claw back some of the market share it lost to Shoprite, Spar and Woolworths in the past few years.The need to avoid cannibalising existing stores, plans to develop new formats and the inability to control the pace of construction of new outlets are some of the reasons given for the lower-than-expected pace of new openings.Management must sort out some of the remaining challenges with the switch to centralised distribution.Pick n Pay chairman Gareth Ackerman sees the need to create jobs as part of the group's "war on waste" campaign.story_article_right2More than half of the country's 15- to 24-year-olds are unemployed. He described this as a waste of talent.As many as a third of workers in the retail sector are estimated to be employed through labour brokers. Analysts say the percentage is declining as tougher anti-broking legislation is introduced. Employers claim the high level of absenteeism often obliges them to resort to labour brokers, who are more expensive but provide a more reliable supply of labour.The retail sector has been one of the few with an encouraging employment story in the past several years. Improved wages, a hike in cheap imports from China and a multibillion-rand social grant programme are the key factors behind the sector's strong performance.But Stats SA says the pace of annualised real growth in retail sales has been slowing since 2011. Last year, real annual retail sales grew 2.4%, down from 4.5% in 2012 and 6.1% in 2011...

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