Supermarket giant recruits in Poland

Britain’s’ largest retailer sources its produce from all over the food – tuna fish from the Maldives, pineapples from Brazil, baby beans from Zambia and now it gets its workers from Poland.

Unemployed Norwich folk are bitter at the supermarket giant Tesco after it says it was forced to recruit from Poland because it could not fill the positions locally.

According to the city’s Evening News, bosses from the Blue Boar Lane branch in Sprowston staged a recruitment fair in Poland after being unable to find staff in the city and five per cent of the 650 staff at the store are now Polish.

But people desperately looking for jobs in the city have claimed that they had applied to Tesco for work, only to be told there were no vacancies available.

Locals shunned

Walter Green, of Plantsman Close in Norwich, said he went to the customer service desk at the Blue Boar Lane store several times last year and was told there were no jobs.

The 70-year-old, a trained carpenter who lives with his wife Elizabeth, 68, said: “I applied for any job going but as they said there were no jobs I never got as far as filling in an application form.

“I wanted some extra money to help tide me and my wife over because the pension here is not exactly great.

“I was just looking for a part-time job and I would have been prepared to do anything. I would have helped stack shelves.”

Stephen Ling, 57, of St Mildreds Road, West Earlham, filled in an application in autumn last year to work in any position in the store.

“They replied saying they had no vacancies to suit me,” he said.

Elaine Berks, of Gertrude Road, Norwich, said: “My son and I have both tried to get employment with the Blue Boar Lane branch and failed. What do they want - brain surgeons? It's rubbish that they can't get suitable employees here.”

A Tesco spokesman said: “Without exception we try to employ locally first. That people were looking for work does not necessarily mean Tesco was recruiting at the same time.
there first.”

The spokesman added: “We would be delighted to receive local interest in the future when positions become available".
Source: bnp.org.uk