Over 500 apply for 12 part-time jobs

Over 500 people applied for 12 temporary Christmas jobs in the Argos store in Athlone's Golden Island shopping centre. A spokesperson for the store confirmed that they were “absolutely inundated†with job applications once the company advertised their temporary positions about two months ago. “We were absolutely inundated, literally. Normally we get in around 500 applications in a cardboard box and they were all taken up, usually we end up sending some back. We still have people coming in asking about jobs, but we finished recruitment about four weeks ago,†the spokesperson continued. The 12 temporary or “fully-flexible†positions are on small contracts and the employees work from a Monday to Saturday period. Nationally, 14,000 applications were sent in to the various stores for just 700 temporary Christmas jobs advertised earlier this year, which made national headlines when the jobs were announced. And in what's good news for the retail industry, the spokesperson confirmed that business is picking up in the run-up to Christmas. Meanwhile, An Post's mail sorting centre in Athlone also took on a number of extra staff to cope with the extra demand on postal services in the lead-up to Christmas. A total of 150 extra temporary staff were taken on for about ten days' work. “They would have worked for us before,†confirmed a spokesperson, who said that An Post always try to rehire the same staff every year, because they are already trained up on the job and in health and safety. An additional 40 staff were hired through advertising within their own permanent staff.