Berglandmilch lowered butter prices in early February. Otherwise? At the moment there are hardly any signs that the products in the food trade are becoming cheaper. Instead, there are always increases, as with beer. The outrage caused by this is also being felt by retail employees, Spar Oberösterreich boss Jakob Leitner revealed. The search for personnel does not make things any easier for the company.
“It is a daily struggle to make the products affordable for the customer and viable for the supplier.” This is how Jakob Leitner describes the situation, which is omnipresent due to the sharply rising raw material and energy costs. “Customers approach our employees when prices have risen. It is not easy for them either,” says the 62-year-old, who, as head of Spar Upper Austria, is responsible for more than 6,500 employees.
The mood in the markets is anything but helpful when looking for new employees. Although Spar enjoys a very good reputation as an apprentice trainer, the retail chain was only able to fill 100 of the 130 planned apprenticeships in Upper Austria last year.
Offensive in Saturday forces
The trading company currently has 250 vacancies, 50 of which are for Saturday workers. “We’re leaning heavily on them now,” reveals Leitner. At the end of March, the fourth expansion phase will be taken into use in the central warehouse in Wels. This adds another 16 picking robots to the previous eight. The result: a three-shift operation can then be reduced to a two-shift operation – a relief for the 270 employees on site.
20 million euros for a new building in Rohrbach
171 Spar and 74 Eurospar stores belong to the Leitner empire, which is now focusing on investments in existing locations. 20 million euros flow into the new Eurospar in Rohrbach alone. Modernizations and expansions are also the order of the day at the Spar stores in Munderfing and Steyr-Wehrgraben.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
