Spencers to employ 8,000 more

Spencer's Retail Ltd, a part of Kolkata-based RPG Enterprises, was on a major recruitment drive to almost double its employee-strength by November 2008.

Spencer's had around 8,000 people at 250 stores in 45 locations in the country now.

Nearly 80 per cent of the people would be employed for the front-end operations of the new stores.

Earlier this year, Sanjiv Goenka, vice-chairman, RPG Group, indicated Spencer's retail would be investing Rs 1,200 crore to take up the number of its reatil stores to 2,000 within the next two years.

By 2010, RPG Retail plans to scale up its retail space from nearly 1 million square feet a present to 5 million square feet.

In the eastern part of the country alone, nearly 500 people will be recruited by the coming year.

More than 200 people are expected to get job in two Spencer hyper marts to be opened in Kolkata within the next six months.

Ranchi, Jharkhand and Orissa outlets would also see a substantial employment over the next one year, the source said.

"We are tapping people from all parts of the country, including the north east. We are also talking to some NGOs also for recruiting people", he said.

This apart, for top notch positions, RPG has initiated recruiting people from foreign countries like Canada, USA and Dubai.

"Canada, USA and Dubai are some of the countries where we feel there is good talent to handle the retail sector, so we have started recruiting people people from these countries as well," he said.

"If we do not get the required talent in India, we may recruit people from foreign countries in future also. Already we have recruited three to four people from abroad," he added.