4400+ job openings announced at Dan Murphy’s and BWS; a breath of relief for the retail sector?
Over 4400 retail jobs are available at Dan Murphy’s and BWS for the summer season, bringing a respite to job seekers in Australia’s retail sector. The two retailers are part of Endeavour Group, currently the largest drinks and hospitality business in the market, and their hiring spree comes as an unusual development given the state of the job market lately: SEEK's August Employment Report just showcased last week that national job ad volumes have witnessed a huge drop by 5.3% month-on-month in August due to strict lockdowns. The Retail & Consumer Products sector was particularly hard hit with a drop of -8.9% month-on-month. So this sudden burst of enormous job openings suggests that some companies, at least, are predicting an upturn.
Many of these jobs are casual and require immediate starts, but they do call for a minimum of 20 working hours per week. Dan Murphy’s, for one, is currently hiring people for over 2,000 customer assistant roles across its 242 stores. BWS, meanwhile, has already advertised over 400 job openings, and the company has said that it will also start recruiting for 2,000 of its own customer assistant roles from the first week of October across its 1400 stores. By state, the two companies are offering over 1,200 jobs in NSW, close to 1,000 jobs in Victoria, and over 900 jobs in Queensland.
Alison Merner, Endeavour Group's Chief People Officer, said in the official announcement that she encourages everybody from university students to retirees to apply for the jobs. She added, “We are looking for motivated people who are service-minded and have a keen interest in the world of drinks. We work with spirit and we’re team players and we expect the same from our team members, so if you bring the can-do attitude we will teach you the rest.”
It's not an entirely open field, of course - applicants must be at least 18 years old to meet liquor licensing requirements.
Given the repeated resurgence of COVID-19 clusters, Endeavour has also been making efforts to reassure applicants that their safety will be taken care of: the official announcement lists a slew of safety measures ranging from placing protective plexiglass screens at checkouts, to putting signage to enable customers to follow social distancing, ensuring that there is no customer crowding in stores, and setting sanitisation stations and contactless delivery and pick up.
The company has also made a point of providing special support measures for team members like giving them the authority to practice self isolation if they are feeling unwell and asked to rest by the health authorities. Special paid leave has also been instituted for pandemic-affected employees, including casual workers.