JD Sports exec: Young people more open to long-term careers in retail due to high unemployment

Kowalczuk said around 75% of the retailer’s store colleagues are under 30, many of whom “join us because they’re in further education and they want part-time work”.

However, she said while many of its younger employees are part of the “transitional workforce”, more and more young people are looking at retail as a career due to rising youth unemployment in other industries around the country. 

“We’ve got a transition workforce, but what we are finding is that the young people who are coming in are actually more open to looking at a career within retail as well,” Kowalczuk told Retail Week.

Her comments come as JD Sports has invited a record 10,000 14-to-15-year-olds to a two-day summit in Manchester to shed light on various career paths amid rising levels of young people struggling to join the workforce.

“Youth unemployment is a concern for the wider economy, the communities and the customers we serve,” said Kowalczuk. 

JD Sports cited in its quarterly results last November that young people out of work was negatively impacting its sales and profits.

The retailer’s youth employment summit came as it was reported last week that the number of graduate jobs offered by Britain’s 100 leading employers had fallen by a quarter in the last three years, representing the “worst [job] market in 13 years” for young people. 

However, commenting on the job market for university leavers, Kowalczuk said: “I don’t think that’s any different than what it was last year or five years ago, particularly when you’re looking at graduates.”

JD Sports took on 45 university leavers over the last two years as part of its graduate scheme and recruited for over 7,000 entry-level roles in the last 12 months.

Kowalczuk said the retail giant’s investment in AI and automating parts of the business would not negatively impact headcount across its retail and head office.

She said: “I don’t think it will remove jobs for JD [but] what it will do is bring different skillsets that we need to make sure that we’re training people on as well.

“There are going to be technical advancements, there always are every year, and it will continually change. What we need to be responsible for is training up the workforce with the different skillsets that are required to support those changes.”