250 new jobs for the North after Asda store takeover
Supermarket giant Asda is to create 250 jobs in the North before the end of the year, it announced today.
The company made the announcement as it unveiled plans for a £30m (€43.9m) refurbishment programme at 12 Safeway stores it is taking over from Morrison’s following clearance from the UK's Office of Fair Trading.
Asda said it was starting an intensive three-month refurbishment schedule at the start of September which would see each store closed for four to six weeks before reopening.
All work is due to be carried out by December.
The company said in a statement that it was committed to retaining all existing Safeway staff – more than 2,000 – and would recruit an average additional 20 staff for each store.
Asda confirmed it intended to continue to work with all of Safeway’s Northern Ireland product suppliers to ensure existing ranges of local products were available in all stores. At the same time, it said, it intended to recruit more local suppliers.
John Deasy, Asda Northern Ireland director, said: “We are delighted that we can now begin work on our Northern Ireland store roll-out.
“Entering this market represents a very exciting stage in Asda’s development and we are looking forward to becoming a valuable part of the local community.”
The supermarket chain confirmed that its popular George clothing range will be available at all but three of the stores, Home and Leisure in all, petrol at five and beer, wine and spirits at all 12 subject to the licences being transferred.
