Guernsey & Jersey Shopworkers Week
A senior politician in the Channel Islands recently spoke about the difference in attitudes between the UK and France as regards working in retail. Guernsey’s former head of the Commerce and Employment department, Stuart Falla, told AP Magazine about ’all the middle-aged men in Paris working in bars, restaurants and shops – and thoroughly enjoying it. They don’t see it as demeaning, they don’t see it as anything other than a great career.’
The situation in the UK could hardly be more different, with many people, particularly in finance centres, preferring to work in an office, regardless of whether or not they find job satisfaction.
Respect for Shopworkers Week, which runs from 3-7 November, aims to ’win some respect for the nation’s two million retail workers.’ It is a sad fact of life that the initiative also hopes to ’help prevent violence and abuse of shopworkers.
Carla Whitham, manager of AP Commercial, welcomes the growing trend of people switching to the commercial sector from the finance world, summed up the situation: ’The specialised staff that you might expect to be scarce seem to be there,’ she said, ’ but working in different roles, and delighted when a position crops up that allows them to do what they are best at. That they can be out there doing something else is due to transferable skills.’