Wilko staff offered 'guaranteed interviews' for new jobs at other retailers

24 August 2023 , 09:39

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Wilko staff have been urged to apply for new roles at other high street chains - with a "guaranteed interview" offered to staff (Image: Amer Ghazzal/REX/Shutterstock)

Popular high street chains including Dunelm, Hobbycraft, and The Works have come out in support of Wilko staff set to lose their jobs this week by applying for jobs in their stores.

Wilko fell into administration earlier this month, putting 12,500 roles and more than 400 stores at risk. Administrator PwC looks set to make an announcement soon on the future of jobs within the company, after reviewing bids made for the collapsed firm.

Several UK retailers have shared their "sadness" about Wilko and have offered new opportunities for staff who face losing their jobs. Dunelm posted on its LinkedIn account earlier this month that it was "thinking about the colleagues" who are affected by the administration news.

The furniture store said it wanted to "offer immediate support" to Wilko staff and said it would "fast track" the application process to Wilko workers who applied for roles with Dunelm and would guarantee them an interview. Discount retailer The Works also shared the offer to Wilko staff on its Linkedin again "guaranteeing an interview if there is a role available".

Other retailers who have come forward to offer support to Wilko staff include DFS, Deichmann, Eurochange, ScS, Hobbycraft, Halfords, Betfred, Home Bargains, Jollyes, and the supermarket chain Tesco. However, most of these companies have only asked Wilko staff to take a look at their vacancies page and only a handful have offered guaranteed interviews if roles are available.

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Today Aldi announced that it was currently recruiting over 6,000 jobs across its UK stores and have called out to Wilko staff to apply. The German discount chain said it had a "range" of positions available from store assistants, caretakers and store managers.

Kelly Stokes, Recruitment Director at Aldi UK, said: “We continue to welcome more and more customers to Aldi stores every week, and we are working hard to meet the huge demand for our unbeatable prices. That means finding thousands of new Aldi colleagues to support this growth, which will hopefully be of interest to those who have recently lost out due to closures elsewhere.”

Store assistants at Aldi receive a starting pay of £11.40 an hour nationwide with those based in London getting from £12.85 an hour. Recently the supermarket chain announced that it was hiring 1,700 more workers across its warehouses before the end of the year. Warehouse workers at Aldi began to receive an hourly wage of £13.13 an hour from February of this year - up from £11.48.

All the retailers told Wilko workers to head to their "vacancies", "careers" or "jobs" pages on their website to see what roles are currently available.

Ruby Flanagan