Employment crisis: 1,500 queue for just 40 supermarket jobs
MORE than 1,500 hopeful people queued for hours for a chance to land one of just 40 supermarket jobs.
The men and women started queueing at 10am – three hours before the interviews were due to start for the Aldi positions at 1pm.
Each candidate was given a short interview for the store and stock assistant jobs spread across seven branches in the Midlands.
A mother-of-two, who arrived at 10am to be one of the first in the queue for the interviews at the Copthorne Hotel in Brierley Hill, said: “It looked more like auditions for The X Factor, not a job for Aldi.”
A teenager who joined the queue at noon on Friday, said: “I noticed the queue and my heart sank, I walked to the back and it just went on and on. It is hard for young people to get a job.”
The jobs are in Dudley, Stourbridge, Halesowen, Brierley Hill and Netherton, all in the West Mids, Kidderminster in Worcestershire and Wollaston, Northants. Aldi area manager Leon Donald said: “A previous event attracted 1,500 so we knew this one would be well attended.”