Coronavirus has turned the world upside down. Much of the globe has been put on hold and it has had a devastating effect on businesses, especially within the travel, tourism, hospitality and entertainment industries but is by no means limited to them. The government’s plan to pay 80% of wages for staff retained by employers is a step forward but has come too late for many and great swathes of the self-employed have been left struggling because they don’t qualify for any of the financial help that the government has announced. 

However, while thousands of jobs have been lost, thousands more have been created thanks to the surge in demand for essential goods and anything that can be obtained online and delivered to your door. If you are looking for a job in these turbulent times it is well worth considering one of the many forms of temporary employment that have become available in the jobs market.

While other sectors have been making redundancies, supermarkets, warehouses and logistics companies can’t keep up with demand and have been urgently recruiting thousands of temporary workers. The message seems to be getting across to people, with CV-Library seeing job searches for delivery driver positions treble in the week 9th-15th March compared to the previous week. Warehouse role searches were up by a massive 132% and searches for retail jobs up by 128%. 

On JobsTrackR there has been an increase in job views from job alerts, with ‘Warehouse pickers Needed ASAP’ receiving the highest number of clicks. Our multi-poster, WaveTrackR, has recorded the transport and logistics sector as having the highest number of applications (30%) since 16th March, with IT and internet and manufacturing following. Tesco is hiring 20,000 more workers, sparking more than half a million applications since last Wednesday, with Sunday seeing the supermarket receive 300 applications per minute. 

Most of the major supermarkets, including Aldi, Morrisons, Tesco and Waitrose, are desperate to hire more staff to cope with rocketing demand and the fallout from panic buying. Co-op last Thursday announced that it was creating 5,000 jobs aimed specifically at providing work for the multitude of workers in the hospitality sector that have been laid off, its CEO Jo Whitfield saying that it makes “perfect sense for us to try and temporarily absorb part of this highly skilled and talented workforce… as we work together to feed the nation”.    

It’s not just supermarkets that are experiencing a surge in demand and a need for more staff during the pandemic. With social distancing measures prompting the majority of the UK to stay at home and all retail stores bar those stocking essential goods now closed, online retailers are finding themselves hugely stretched. Last week Amazon announced a massive recruitment drive, hiring thousands more warehouse and delivery staff. Food delivery services such as Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats are also looking for temporary workers to meet demand.  

Local farms normally dependant on overseas seasonal workers are experiencing huge staff shortages due to travel restrictions and a tightening of border controls. As a result, farming industry leaders have put out a plea to those finding themselves out of work to apply for temporary jobs helping to pick and pack fruits and vegetables.

It is estimated that over 50,000 jobs have been created because of Coronavirus-related demand. With many of these jobs being temporary positions it would seem temporary work could help thousands of jobseekers ride the storm during this challenging time. Delivery drivers, warehouse operatives, supermarket cashiers, shelf stackers, and customer service personnel, haulage drivers, seasonal farmworkers – these are the positions that urgently need filling. The logistics, retail, and farming sectors all need your help to keep the nation running. As such, temporary work could be a solution, or certainly an option, when job searching right now. At JobsTrackR we have tried to make this easy for you by creating a ‘Looking for temporary work’ button on our homepage. Searching for a job during the Coronavirus crisis will be challenging but there are jobs out there, it may just require a change of tack.