From senior to supermarket: staying positive after a COVID-19 related job change

Good news! Tesco has announced that it is making 16,000 employees permanent that was hired as a staffing solution to COVID-19. 

Where did these extra 16,000 people before the crisis?

Some may have been unemployed, others applied to help out with the crisis, but most are in their new positions after being let go from their former employers.

For example, though tech is essential for the foreseeable future, nearly 70,000 employees within the industry lost their jobs by July 2020.

From UX and UI Designers to Sales Representatives, big names had to lay off masses of professional and expert workers...

Staff loses:

• 25,500 Silicon Valley

• 6,500 - Uber

• 17% of staff - Lyft 

With these figures bearing weight on the global economic crisis that we are trying to fix, it can feel despairing, especially if it is friends, family, or yourself who has lost a job.

As well as Tesco, Woolworths hired 20,000 extra workers and many followed suit.

To secure a role in such uncertainty, no matter what the job entails, is an achievement on its own.

It’s time to start being grateful for what we do have rather than what we once had.

Here are some positives from having a new position within retail or supermarkets.

Exercise

A 2017 survey by DBI Furniture Solutions found that 46% of respondents said that they didn’t have time to exercise. Office jobs often lead to working overtime since projects and assignments are continuous until that ever-nearing deadline.

Additionally, office jobs are, you guessed it, based within an office.

Supermarket jobs involved lots of walking, lifting, and whole-body movement. Instead of sitting down, munching away, you’re now moving from start to finish! 

New skills

You might have been a wizard with Scripting or Telecomms, but face-to-face customer interactions and the continuous physical organisation calls on another skill:

Stamina.

Without it, you will not make it past that double shift. In the US, the average age for employees in ‘grocery’ stores was 20 to 24 and 25 to 34.

Often these ages are perceived by older generations as lack-lust, lazy millennials. However, to work as many as 40, sporadic, hours a week in a busy environment demands stamina and work ethic.

These skills are learnt on the job, not taught!

New people 

Unlike office jobs, supermarket and retail positions are sociable both within the team and with members of the public. It can bring out the strength that hard-working teams demand, whilst potentially creating sincere friendships within your new roles!