Britain's Asda To Hire 15,000 Christmas Workers

By Donna Ahern
Britain's Asda To Hire 15,000 Christmas Workers

Asda said on Tuesday it plans to recruit 15,000 temporary workers for the Christmas trading period, joining a battle for staff in a tight labour market.

The group said around 500 roles would be based at Asda’s depots, 1,500 are home delivery driver positions, with the remainder being store-based roles across the United Kingdom.

Asda is owned by Zuber and Mohsin Issa and private equity group TDR Capital.

Reuters reported last month that warehouses in Britain are having to pay up to 30% more to recruit staff after a chronic shortage of workers exacerbated pressure on already buckling supply chains and threatened to derail the run up to Black Friday and Christmas.

Terminated Deal

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Yesterday (18 October), the British supermarket chain, and EG Group have terminated a deal that would have seen EG buy Asda's petrol forecourts for £750 million ($1.03 billion), the two companies said on Monday.

Both Asda and EG are owned by Zuber and Mohsin Issa and private equity group TDR Capital.

The deal was initially struck in February. However, regulatory restrictions placed on the Issa brothers and TDR were not lifted until June.

Only then could the Asda and EG Group's teams start to share commercial information relating to EG's purchase of the petrol forecourts.

This resulted in several changes to the financial evaluation of the proposed transaction.

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Last month Asda announced plans to establish 28 new "Asda On the Move" convenience stores at EG forecourts this year, with a target of 200 by the end of next year and the ambition to roll out more sites in 2023.

News by Reuters additional reporting and edited by Donna Ahern Checkout. For more Retail stories click here. Click subscribe to sign up for the Checkout print edition

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