By CODY MUDGE
Each partition of glass along the entrance and exit are brilliantly adorned with large red and white signs saying something along the lines of: total liquidation – everything must go! An employee even patrolled the sidewalk along Ottawa Street with signs stapled to a piece of wood, informing passersby that their last chance to get a great deal at Target will soon be missed.
Target isn’t the only significant retail outlet to close its doors in Canada recently. Japan tech company Sony has also pulled out of the Canadian market, closing all of their stores.
Clothing retailers Mexx, Sears and Jacob are also going through various restructuring efforts, which have left thousands out of work.
“It’s unfair. I don’t know how else to put it. If you’re a part-timer how much more could you have done to keep a business alive? The impact of those at the top is exponentially bigger so what could have changed and kept me working?” asked a Target employee who wished to remain anonymous.
Every Target store in Canada will soon be closed and that means that thousands of part-time workers will be out of work. Between the store in Kitchener and Cambridge dozens of Target employees are entering the job market to seek new employment, but finding it may not be as difficult as initially suspected.
“We’re about to enter a pretty significant hiring push,” said Eric Jackson, a senior supervisor at Best Buy in Kitchener. “At this point it looks like as many as 10 part-time positions will open up across the store, so not just on the sales floor but in product processing and operations as well.”
Spring is traditionally a strong hiring season and all across the tri-cities businesses will be looking for workers for entry-level positions. Sources at Advocate Insurance Group, Corningware-Corelle and The Shoe Company confirmed that they are keeping former Target employees in mind when doing their spring hiring. While it certainly isn’t the ideal outcome at least opportunities for employment seem to be plentiful for those falling victim to Target’s closing.
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