Christmas has come early for job seekers in Wrexham.
Stores at the Eagles Meadow shopping centre are recruiting more than 60 temporary staff to cope with the festive rush.
A number of them are expected to kept on in the New Year and given permanent positions.
The annual jobs bonanza already runs to at least 40 fresh positions, with more due to be added to the tally as other store bosses finalise their plans.
Some businesses say their additional staff requirements will be in double figures while quite a few have smaller numbers in mind as the tills begin to jingle in the weeks before December 25.
The largest number of jobs will be on offer at the Debenhams store, where manager Torrey Winter said: “We’re planning to take on about 18 people in the run-up to Christmas.
“The jobs will be in all parts of the store, including back of house, the restaurant and in the shop.
“Although these are all temporary positions, there is a possibility that some of them could become permanent.
“Last year, for instance, five of our Christmas staff ended up staying with us.”
Also planning for an upsurge in seasonal trading is new toy store The Entertainer which had a fanfare launch at Eagles Meadow back in July after moving to the shopping centre from its previous base in the town centre.
Manager Karen Clutton said: “We’ll be taking on about six temporary staff for the period up to Christmas and have already started recruiting.
“Their contracts will run from September and we’re offering daytime, evening and out of hours shifts on 20 and 10 hour contracts.
“Anyone interested can fill in a form available in store or apply online via our website.
“Christmas is a huge part of our annual trading story and we’ve already started to introduce some pre-seasonal offers with more coming in as we head towards December 25.”
It’s a similar story with the Trespass outdoor clothing store where manager Isaac Patterson said: “We’re planning to take on one extra person and it’s possible they will be able to stay on in a permanent position in the New Year.
“We’ve doing very well at the moment and have just had a fantastic couple of months which saw us go about £20,000 on our takings for the same time last year.
“We’re hoping that success will continue as we head into the pre-Christmas period.”
Amongst the stores which already have their seasonal staff in place is the Clarks shoe shop where manager Lynn Valance explained: “We usually take on our extra staff in June and July in time for the busy back-to-school period who then tend to stay with us until after Christmas.
“This year we took on four people who are on four-hour contracts.”
Another store with extra staff already recruited is high class jewellers Mococo.
Its manager Suzanne Bartley said: “We took on four additional people a couple of weeks ago. They’ll start shortly and will stay with us until January.”
Also taking temporary staff on are Next, Wallis, River Island and JD Sports and amongst the Eagles Meadow stores still putting the finishing touches to their pre-Christmas recruitment strategies are Marks & Spencer, Sports Direct and Poundworld.
Eagles Meadow Manager Kevin Critchley said: “Eagles Meadow already employs around 1000 staff and the news that we will be seeing at least another 60 new faces behind the tills at our stores over the next few weeks, through Christmas and into the New Year sales, is excellent – I certainly hope that some of them will become permanent members of our team here at Eagles Meadow.”
