Hundreds vie for 80 jobs at Heinz in Telford
Hundreds of job hunters today rushed to claim 80 new jobs on offer at Telford's Heinz ketchup factory.
Almost 50 people had signed up for the jobs fair in the half an hour before it opened, with hundreds more hopefuls from across the West Midlands arriving throughout the morning.
Heinz plans to close a factory in Belgium and move production to Telford, where is already has the packaging site Heinz Single Service.
The factory currently employs 118 workers, producing ketchup sachets. The expansion is taking that number to about 200.
The expansion will see more food products produced in Telford and is seen as a major vote of confidence in the town and the quality of its workforce.
Bosses at Heinz said the move is part of plans to consolidate food manufacturing across Heinz Europe and expanding the Telford site was part of the move to ensure the business is operating as effectively and efficiently as possible.
The jobs fair at the Ramada Hotel on Forgegate was today organised to find people to fill the new posts, including production team leaders, machine setters, process operators, shift engineers, process control engineers, quality technicians as well as roles in the warehouse.
All of these roles are production based and are available on either a rotating shift pattern or permanent night shift pattern.
HR Manager for Heinz, Leila Hendy, said she was delighted at the demand for the jobs, saying the fair was an effective way to assess candidates in one go.
"It is always difficult to gauge how it will go," she said. "We've had a good response before the event with people calling us to get a bit more information, I know people have been calling the hotel as well."
Earlier this year, the company had a stall at the first Telford & Wrekin Council Partnership for Jobs Fair at Telford International Centre, which was attended by more than 4,000 job hunters.
Today's jobs fair will run until 6.30pm and will be held again on Saturday from 10am to 3pm.
Though the move is good news for Telford, staff at the former Belgian site reacted angrily to the news. Unions at the Turnhout manufacturing site in Belgium vowed to fight the decision earlier this year.
Union leaders in Belgium claim the move by Heinz is purely because it is 40 per cent cheaper to employ workers in Telford than at the Turnhout plant, which employed 157.
