HUNDREDS OF job-seekers descended on O’Connell Street in Dublin yesterday hoping to land one of the part-time temporary positions up for grabs at retail giant Marks & Spencer.
Close to 1,000 people, including professionals, graduates and students, waited patiently for several hours to be interviewed for a variety of jobs open to anyone of school-leaving age.
Some 588 temporary positions are available at the company’s 20 stores throughout Ireland for the Christmas period.
A spokeswoman for the store said: “We do a big push to get employees for the busy season every year and the turn out for Christmas recruitment is usually positive, but this year it has been incredible”.
James Kane from Clarehall was among those in the queue at the Academy Plaza hotel on Findlater Place off O’Connell Street yesterday morning.
The qualified personal trainer said: “There’s no work in the gyms so I have to take a different career path . . . it’s very frustrating as I have been job-hunting for seven months and I’ve applied for everything going.
“I thought I would be in and out of the interview in 30-45 minutes, but I have been queuing here for over two hours now,” Mr Kane said.
Iseult Cremin from Clontarf said she didn’t expect many people to be in the queue.
“My brother applied for the same positions last year and he walked straight into the interview – there was no queue.”
The UCD psychology student said she had been searching for a part-time job for over a month but with no luck so far.
Krystiane Broekhuizen (25) from Tallaght said she was applying for the positions because she finished air-hostess training in July only to discover there were no jobs in the industry
Liz Johnston from Castleknock said she had been looking for a job ever since she was let go from a part-time accounts position several months ago.
Successful candidates will be expected to work a minimum of 16 hours per week, including evenings and weekends.
Interviews are to continue today.