Tesco's Record on Job Creation - Ruthin, Wales

Tesco's new store at Ruthin in Wales opened at 9am on 31st July 2006 despite substantial local protest that it would adversely affect local highstreet shops in the area. The reality has been that Ruthin has lost numerous small shops on the highstreet since it's opening [... apparently they now run pub quizzes asking questions like "can you remember the name of the grocer's shop that we used to have in town?"].

But it's not the loss of highstreet shops that locals are most annoyed about - they knew that would happen and they were [sort of] braced for it. Instead it's the false claims by Tesco about the number of jobs they'd create with the store's opening.

[From the Ruthin blog, Mon Sep 18th, 2006]

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but the pledge at the outset of the planning process was for 300 jobs. To be fair to Tesco, they stated “up to 300”, which means any number from one to 299. In essence, though, there was an expectation that the number would be far nearer 300 than one. At the time of opening, this was scaled down by a third, to “over 200” according to the Free Press (27 July 2006) and 150, according to Tesco’s own publicity.

Reports in the media (June 2006) suggest this is actually a mere 180, many of whom are part time. Judging by the faces of those in Tesco uniform, a substantial number are non-local, not that that is intrinsically wrong.

I’ve heard from a former (non-Tesco) supermarket manager that the likelihood is that as soon as trade settles into a predictable pattern Tesco will cut its workforce. As staff leave, they will not be replaced; redundancy will be avoided but is never ruled out. This, he says, is standard supermarket practice.

Using research in the United States, Cymuned, the Welsh anti-colonial organisation, estimates that the net increase in employment upon the arrival of a supermarket, when you take into account the loss of town-centre jobs, is a mere 10 over the course of five years. Yes, 10. Cymuned states in Britain there could even be a net loss. And, with a supermarket, some 14 per cent of profit is retained locally, whereas you’d expect 60 per cent with a local business, sourcing products more locally.