The services sector is one of the driving forces behind the local economy. Well aware of this importance businesses and politicians are keen to encourage the opening of new commercial centres which do their bit towards reducing the local unemployment rate. In Mijas this aim is about to be achieved with the opening of the new Hipercor store at the end of this year, generating 1,500 job vacancies. In an agreement with Mijas Town Hall the firm has committed to employing local people resident in the municipality of Mijas wherever possible.
The figures were announced on Tuesday by the Mayor Agustín Moreno and representatives of El Corte Inglés, who also offered information about the imminent start of 180 training courses for the new staff. Recruitment for the new store began in January and will end before the summer. “On May 9th we will start to train the first 80 candidates. It will be a staggered process which will be complete by September”, explained the Director of Staff Training and Recruitment at El Corte Inglés, Jesús García. The future Mijas Hipercor employees will have three weeks of classes and then gain practical work experience in stores in Malaga and Marbella.
The company has chosen the old “Multicines” building as the ideal place to hold the staff training courses. Here a small virtual shop is to be set up where future employees can learn sales techniques and customer attention. Anyone interested in applying for a job at the new Hipercor should go to the old cinema building in Molino de Viento. So far 6,700 applications have been received.
Of the 1,506 jobs to be created by the new store, 975 will be direct employees of Hipercor: 570 in sales, 259 in catering and 110 in administration. The rest of the staff will be indirectly employed, taken on by individual brands (250) and for promotions (125), cleaning (80), security (46) or night-time shelf stacking.
A commercial and leisure complex
The design of the new Hipercor will be similar to the store in Marbella. It is being built on land covering 16,000 square metres and will consists of basements, ground floor and three more storeys. The sales floor will cover 48,000 square metres and the 80,000 square metres of basement will provide parking for 1,461 vehicles. The store has a budget of 58.6 million euros.
“The store will mean a huge transformation for the Las Lagunas area”, pointed out the Mayor, Agustín Moreno. In fact the firm will be building an underpass for the MA-409 at the Camino de Campanales crossroads, creating a new dual carriageway from this crossroads as far as the Avenida de Mijas and carrying out other road improvements in the streets adjacent to the store itself. These road improvements are worth some five million euros.
