Asda to create 2,250 customer service roles

Asda plans to create 2,250 shopfloor jobs as part of a radical restructuring of store-level management. The retailer revealed last week it was shedding 1,400 head office and store jobs.

The roles are an attempt by the retailer to improve customer service. Eight new employees will be appointed at each of the retailer's 279 stores for a range of frontline customer-facing roles.

Asda people director David Smith said: 'The jobs we are announcing today will help us serve our 12 million weekly customers even better. They are all customer-facing roles on the shopfloor, which will ensure our colleagues are always happy to help.'

Asda delayed today's announcement in consideration of the feelings of employees whose jobs are under review. Smith said: 'It would have been insensitive last week to talk about job creation when some of our colleagues were facing uncertainty about their roles. Our intention is to redeploy as many of them as possible, while continuing to create new jobs in all our stores.'