Nuneaton News

Job Market Becoming a Jungle (or a Zoo!)

3,000 people recently turned up to Twycross Zoo near Atherstone in North Warwickshire hoping to secure one of the 150 seasonal jobs on offer as part of a recruitment day.

As the local paper reported, “Staff could not believe their eyes when they saw how many people had turned out for the event on Saturday and it is firmly believed that the recession and subsequent job losses were the driving forces behind the huge response.”

The recruitment day did not actually start until 11am, but people had already started queuing by 9am.  By 11.45am people were having to be turned away with staff members standing at the gates with notices saying 'recruitment drive over subscribed, thanks for your interest'.

With all the interest an overspill car park had to be opened, which is only normally used on busy days for visitors such as on Bank Holidays.

People from all walks of life turned out for the recruitment drive from managers to PAs competing for the likes of food and beverage assistants, retail assistants, rangers and cleaning assistants.

With so many people turning out there were tailbacks to the zoo stretching five miles long.

As the PR manger at the zoo said, “"The response was absolutely unbelievable and it is quite clearly because of the recession.”

"Normally our recruitment day is for students and people looking for seasonal work and we get around 200 people coming along to apply.”

"We had people coming from all walks of life from managers to PAs and every industry that you can think of.”

"They were coming from all over the place we had people who had come from London to Wales, so you can see that it doesn't matter what the job is as long as people are providing for their families.”

This obscene spectacle is being repeating over and over again all round the country as people realise that this recession is worse than anything we have seen in the past.  Many in the queues along side the skilled workers and managers were young people – many of which are starting to draw the conclusion that it’s the system to blame – that’s exactly why I would urge everyone of them to join the Youth Fight for Jobs Campaign.

Click here to return to the Nuneaton News page