M&S to recruit 11,000 seasonal roles over Christmas

High street stalwart Marks & Spencer has announced plans to hire more than 11,000 new workers in the UK over the key festive period, kicking off recruitment from next week.

The retailer said on Wednesday that it has increased the number of seasonal roles by more than 1,000 from last year, as it looks to take on extra customer assistants to support in stores.

Ahead of the recruitment window opening on 9 October, M&S said it is looking for people to start in mid-November with a variety of roles and flexible working patterns available.

The company said that customer assistants will help serve customers on shop floors and at service points, as well as play an integral role in delivering its new Christmas Food to Order service, which launched last week.

“Our fantastic store colleagues play such a big part in delivering the magic of M&S at Christmas to our customers. And this year we’re recruiting even more colleagues to ensure we’re closer to customers," said operations director Sacha Berendji.

“The Christmas period is a busy but exciting time for M&S and no two days are the same – in fact, many colleagues started their M&S careers at Christmas and after the festive period were invited to go onto our Stepping Into Team Manager programme."