How Retailers Can Cut Recruitment Costs & Keep Staff Through The ‘Silly Season’

With the minimum wage climbing again and a new PRSI increase and pension auto-enrolment on the way, retailers are already counting every euro. And just as labour costs peak, the busiest season of the year rolls around. It’s called the silly season for a reason; not just because of festive madness on the shop floor, but because of how easily costs can spiral if stores aren’t strategic about hiring and retention.

For many, this Christmas will be a test of how to do more with less. The good news is that there are smart, realistic ways to reduce recruitment spend and hold onto your best people, even when your wage bill is already under pressure.


1. Start with who you know

The cheapest, fastest route to great staff is usually the people you already have. Referrals are gold. A small reward: a voucher, a half day off, or even public recognition, can encourage existing staff to recommend friends or relatives who’ll fit in well. Not only does it cut ad spend, but it usually delivers stronger hires who are easier to retain.

Likewise, rehire last year’s seasonal team. They already know your store, your customers, and your systems. Even if a few have moved on, many will happily return for the extra Christmas cash. It saves you training time, reduces mistakes, and gives the team a head start before December chaos hits.


2. Upskill before you upsize

Before rushing to hire extra staff, look at who’s already on your books. Could a strong part-timer handle extra shifts or take on keyholder duties? Could a deli assistant be trained to close the department or store one night a week? Small, temporary promotions can keep employees motivated while saving you the cost of a new hire. It also builds future leaders, and in this labour market, succession planning is as valuable as sales planning.


3. Get smarter about how you hire

When it comes to advertising, focus on visibility, not volume. Target local Facebook groups, noticeboards, and community WhatsApp chats instead of expensive internet job boards. Be clear and concise about the hours, pay, and benefits in your advertisements; transparency saves time and weeds out unsuitable applicants early.

Group interviews or open recruitment days can also save hours of admin. Interviewing several candidates together speeds up the process and gives you a quick sense of who’s confident, reliable, and customer focused. And partner with a trusted recruiter early; December panic hiring often costs more than steady planning in October.


4. Recognise that retention is your cheapest recruitment strategy

It’s far more cost-effective to keep the people you already have than to replace them. Small gestures can make a big difference: staff raffles, free coffees on long shifts, a “December Hero” board, or even just saying thank you publicly.

Flexibility is another key factor. Offering staff a little choice—finishing early for a school play or swapping shifts for a family event—costs nothing but builds huge goodwill. After all, this is the time of year when staff are giving up their weekends, their evenings, and sometimes their patience. A bit of flexibility easily balances that energy.


5. Crunch the numbers and the culture

Retaining good employees can save thousands in ad spend, training, and lost productivity. Multiply that across your store and the savings are substantial. And while the cost of labour keeps increasing, how you build costs very little. Create an environment people want to stay in, and your recruitment budget will thank you for it.

This Christmas, everyone’s energy and cash are squeezed, but they can outsmart it. Focus on your people, plan early, and make every hire and every hour count. Because when margins are tight, the cleverest way to manage your team is where the real return on investment lies.

What The Minimum Wage Hike Means For The Retail Sector

Following the recent minimum wage increase announcement, Donna Ahern spoke with Nikki Murran, director of Grocery Retail Recruitment at Excel Recruitment, about its impact on the grocery retail industry.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe announced Budget 2026 on Tuesday, 7 October, outlining several measures that will directly affect the grocery retail industry. Among the changes introduced were a 50-cent increase on a box of 20 cigarettes and the introduction of a new tax of 50 cents per millilitre on e-cigarette liquids, effective from 1 November 2025. Petrol and diesel prices will also rise, adding further pressure to transport and logistics costs. In a move that will be welcomed by some, the VAT rate on food will be reduced from 13.5% to 9%, starting 1 July 2026.

However, the most significant — and potentially most challenging — announcement is that the National Minimum Wage (NMW) will rise to €14.15 per hour from 1 January 2026. This change, while aimed at supporting workers, is expected to place considerable financial and operational strain on businesses across the sector.

To better understand how this will impact the industry, ShelfLife spoke with Nikki Murran, Director of Grocery Retail Recruitment at Excel Recruitment, for her insights on the potential ramifications.

“The announcement of another minimum wage increase — this time a rise of €0.65, or 4.8%, to €14.15 per hour — will land hard for retailers. On paper, 65 cents might not sound seismic, but in the context of recent history, it’s another significant escalation on top of several steep hikes in a row,” she notes.

“To put it in perspective, since 2020, Ireland’s minimum wage has risen from €10.10 to €14.15 — that’s an increase of 40% in six years, compared to just 17% over the entire previous decade (2010–2020). For a standard 39-hour contract, that means a payroll jump from €20,500 in 2020 to €28,700 in 2026.”

“For a single staff member, that’s manageable; for a convenience store with 30 staff, the additional wage cost can easily exceed €30,000 annually once you include PRSI, holiday pay, and employer pension contributions. A supermarket with a team of 80–100 is looking down the barrel of a €90,000+ increase to their annual labour budget. And this is before any ripple effect spreads across the rest of the store,” Murran says.

“The challenge for retailers is that these rises come without any meaningful increase in productivity or margins. Grocery operates on tight margins, and there’s simply no buffer waiting to absorb these increases. While the principle of fair pay is sound, the pace of these hikes — four in four years — leaves very little breathing room for employers to plan, invest, or recover between increases.”


Impact on recruitment

“This increase will no doubt impact recruitment within the grocery retail sector, particularly for entry-level roles. The effect on recruitment is already visible. Each statutory increase immediately raises expectations at the bottom end of the pay scale, blurring the traditional pay gap between entry-level and supervisory roles.”


Three key recruitment challenges

Murran outlined that for employers, this creates three key recruitment challenges:

  • Reduced differentiation: A new hire with minimal retail experience now earns almost the same as someone who’s been in-store for several years. That makes retention harder, as the reward for loyalty or experience shrinks.

  • Compression at the bottom: The entire salary ladder tightens, so employers must raise those above entry-level to maintain fairness and hierarchy.

  • Cost-per-hire inflation: With higher wage floors, the value of an inexperienced candidate declines relative to cost. Employers end up paying significantly more for the same level of skill or output as before.

“This puts particular strain on independent retailers and smaller symbol groups, who already face higher recruitment costs and lower brand leverage than the big multiples. For them, entry-level is fast becoming an expensive level.”


Impact on SMEs

So, how will this wage hike affect small and medium-sized (SME) grocery businesses compared to larger chains?

“Large chains can absorb wage increases more easily because they can spread higher costs across centralised budgeting, automation, and shared back-office functions. They also have scale to negotiate better supplier terms and can offset rising labour costs through efficiencies elsewhere in the business,” Murran highlights.

“For small and medium-sized retailers, it’s a very different story. They face the exact same hourly increases but with far fewer levers to pull. Their margins are often just as tight, their cost base less flexible, and they rely heavily on personal service to compete with the multiples.”

Unintended consequences

There is growing concern that the increase may lead to unintended consequences, including reduced staff hours and a slowdown in hiring.

“We’re already seeing the signs — not so much slower hiring, but more strategic hiring for every replacement. There’s now a laser focus on staff costs, weekly labour cost reviews, and new scrutiny on hiring budgets,” says Murran.

Looking ahead to 2026, here’s what the industry can expect to see:

  • Tighter rosters: Expect greater scrutiny on every scheduled hour. Fixed contracts may give way to more flexible shifts that can be scaled up or down depending on trading patterns.

  • Automation creep: Each wage rise strengthens the business case for technology — from self-checkouts to AI-based stock management — gradually reducing reliance on manual labour.

  • More deliberate replacement hiring: When staff leave, replacements aren’t hired automatically. The focus is shifting to productivity and ROI per employee. “It’s no longer about filling gaps quickly, but about hiring smarter, based on the store’s real needs. This is where we’re seeing a strong demand from our clients since the last wage increase — ensuring every new addition is worth the higher salary they now command,” says Murran.


Salary advice

Will the increase in the minimum wage change how she advises her clients on salary benchmarking and workforce planning?

“Absolutely,” Murran asserts. “Many of our clients rely on us for market analysis and salary benchmarking, and looking ahead to next year, here’s what I’ll be recommending.”

  • Adopt deliberate, value-driven hiring: ensuring every new addition genuinely strengthens performance and delivers a return on investment.

  • Refresh salary bands: now so they still ladder above €14.15 in 2026. It’s essential to protect pay differentials and avoid compression between entry-level and supervisory roles.

  • Use the widened USC 2% band: to communicate net pay clearly to staff. A full-time minimum wage earner will now see fully within that band, so it’s worth showing employees their true take-home improvements.

  • Lock in structured progression: so trainee and duty manager roles don’t collapse into the new floor as it rises. A clear development pathway protects morale and retention.

  • Invest in in-house training: to upskill and empower these now-more-expensive recruits.


Wage compression

No doubt, the wage increases could influence wage expectations across the sector, particularly between entry and mid-level positions.

“This is happening already,” she explains. “Pay expectations and conversations are rising across the board, not just at the base level.”

“Let’s take a sales assistant earning €14.15/hour — that same person might have earned €10.50/hour only a few years ago. A senior assistant earning €13.50/hour or a €30,000 salary now finds themselves overtaken. To maintain parity, that senior or duty manager will need to earn €17–€18/hour just to maintain the same gap.”

“That’s a €4/hour increase, or roughly €8,000 extra annually for one mid-level employee. Multiply that across an entire management team, and you can see how the ‘ripple’ quickly becomes a wave.”

“The result is that even roles never intended to be linked to the minimum wage — trainee managers, assistant managers, fresh food supervisors — all require upward adjustments to preserve internal equity and morale. Otherwise, you risk new hires earning nearly as much as their supervisors, which is demotivating and destabilising.”

“In practice, this means a 5% minimum wage increase often translates into an 8–10% increase across total payroll costs once knock-on adjustments are made. Retailers can’t simply freeze those higher-level salaries without risking turnover.”


Team values

Murran highlights that every retailer she works with truly values their teams and wants to see staff paid fairly and rewarded for their hard work.

“Nobody in this industry is arguing against fair pay,” she points out.

“If this were the only recent cost increase, it would be far easier to shoulder.”

“But this latest hike comes on top of so many other pressures — continuous increases in energy, insurance, and compliance costs — alongside the Deposit Return Scheme, new pension auto-enrolment, PRSI increases, and the imminent carbon tax. For many retailers, this keeps pushing margins to breaking point.”

“And yet, despite all of that, we still have an army of small, motivated, and dedicated retailers showing up day after day, delivering exceptional standards and outstanding service. Their resilience, passion, and pride in what they do are what keep the Irish grocery sector running strong,” Murran concludes.


USC increase

The increase in the 2% USC band to €28,700 is a notable change for low to middle-income earners, potentially offering modest relief by reducing the portion of income subject to higher USC rates. However, its overall impact may be limited when weighed against ongoing inflation and cost increases.

“It helps at the margin for lower earners. A full-time minimum wage worker at €14.15 earns about €28,696, which nearly fits under the new €28,700 ceiling (once they are on 39 hours or less). That prevents them tipping into the higher USC rate in 2026, which is sensible. But it doesn’t offset the full employer cost increase; it just limits the employee’s USC exposure,” she explains.

Those budget measures raise important questions as to whether they strike the right balance between supporting workers and managing business burden in the retail sector.

“Protecting low earners is important, and aligning the USC bands is logical,” she maintains.

“But with wage floors advancing by around 40% since 2020, many grocers operating on slim margins are absorbing a lot of structural cost with limited offset elsewhere. Without parallel measures that lower operating costs or raise productivity, such as insurance relief, targeted employment supports, or genuine red-tape reduction, this keeps pushing stores towards tighter margin, asking how much is really left to squeeze”.

Why Retailers Shouldn’t Underestimate Part-Time Student Staff

If you’ve been in retail long enough, you’ll know the value of a solid weekend crew.

The students who come in, full of energy (and possibly too much caffeine), ready to cover tills, stock shelves, and keep the shop floor ticking over. But as labour shortages continue across grocery retail, it’s time to see part-time student workers as more than just rota-fillers. They’re a crucial part of your long-term staffing strategy.


Why hire students in the first place?

The obvious reason: they’re available when you need them most. Students are often more willing to work evenings, weekends, and holiday periods. That’s when footfall spikes and having reliable cover can make the difference between a smooth trading day and chaos in the aisles.

But there’s a lot more to it than availability. Students bring:

  • Energy and tech-savvy skills: They’ve grown up in the digital world. From self-checkouts to stock systems, they adapt quickly. Deloitte’s 2024 survey found Gen Z and young millennials are more digitally fluent than any other workforce group — a handy asset as stores become more tech-driven.

  • A fresh perspective: Want to know what’s trending on TikTok or which new snack will sell out by lunchtime? Ask your student staff. They’re closer to your younger customers and can give insights your senior team might miss.

  • The talent pipeline: That weekend cashier or deli assistant could be your store or department manager in a few years. Many of today’s retail leaders started out stacking shelves part-time while studying. By nurturing them now, you create loyal, home-grown talent.


What’s in it for you as an employer?

Let’s not forget, student staff aren’t just getting pocket money. They’re learning skills that ultimately benefit you:

  • Communication: Handling customers (especially cranky ones) makes them more resilient.

  • Teamwork: They learn to collaborate across generations and departments.

  • Work ethic: Balancing study and shifts builds discipline. The CSO reported in 2023 that over half of Irish students work while studying, often out of necessity. Those who commit to both usually develop excellent reliability.

When students develop these skills, you benefit from a more capable, adaptable workforce.


The common concerns (and how to solve them)

You may be thinking: But what about exams? Or when they graduate and leave? Both valid concerns. Here’s how to get ahead of them:

  • Exam season drop-off: Plan early. Encourage staff to flag study leave well in advance. Building exam flexibility into your scheduling boosts retention.

  • High turnover: Some will leave, yes. But those who stay longer usually do so because they see a future in your business.

  • Reliability: Set expectations clearly at the interview stage. Students respect honesty, and in return, they’re more likely to commit.


Turning part-timers into future managers

Here’s where many retailers miss a trick: too often, weekend staff are treated as short-term solutions. They’re one of your best talent pipelines. The key is to support them clearly and offer development pathways:

  1. Structured induction: Don’t just throw them on tills and hope for the best. Give them a proper welcome and show them how their role contributes to the bigger picture.

  2. Cross-training: Move them between checkouts, stock, fresh food, and customer service. This not only keeps work interesting for them but also makes them far more useful to you.

  3. Mentoring: Pair high-potential part-timers with experienced supervisors. A bit of guidance helps students picture themselves in a management role.

  4. Access to training programmes: Many retailers now open trainee manager or department manager programmes to part-time staff. If a student sees a career path, even if they’re still in college, they’re far more likely to stay on after graduation.

  5. Recognition and progression: Celebrate milestones. For example, promote strong performers into “keyholder” roles, then onto team leader. These small steps show students that hard work and reliability are noticed and rewarded.

By nurturing your part-timers, you’re not just filling gaps on the weekend rota — you’re actively building your future management team.


Why this strategy matters now

Labour shortages aren’t easing anytime soon. Excel Recruitment’s 2024 data showed year-on-year increases in vacancies across retail, particularly in fresh food and convenience. And with unemployment at just 4.1% (CSO, 2024), relying solely on full-time hires is unrealistic.

At the same time, the Higher Education Authority (2023) reported that over 60% of full-time students in Ireland rely on part-time jobs. They’re looking for flexible work. You need staff. The fit couldn’t be clearer.


How to get the best from your student staff

If you’re hiring students, here are five ways to make the most of it:

  1. Be clear upfront: Set expectations around rotas, weekends, and exams.

  2. Offer flexibility: Study comes first. Showing understanding builds loyalty.

  3. Invest in training: Expose them to different areas of the store.

  4. Recognise contribution: Small thanks go a long way.

  5. Create a pathway: Show them how today’s weekend job can become tomorrow’s career.


Conclusion

Hiring students isn’t just about filling shifts. Done right, it’s about developing future leaders while keeping your store running smoothly today.

So, the next time a student hands in a CV, don’t just see a weekend worker. See the extra set of hands that gets you through Christmas week, the fresh perspective that connects you with younger shoppers, and maybe, just maybe, your next department manager.

How Today’s Shoppers Are Changing Grocery Recruitment

There’s been a shift in Irish grocery retail over the last few years – and no, it’s not just that we all now know how to pronounce quinoa.

The Irish shopper of 2025 is savvy, value-driven, and watching every cent. They’re just as likely to quiz staff on the carbon footprint of their sandwich as they are to ask where the toilet roll is. And that shift in shopper behaviour? It’s having a serious knock-on effect on how grocery retailers hire and who they’re looking for.


Price is still king – and it’s changing the hiring game

Cost-of-living pressures remain front and centre. Shoppers are budgeting harder, buying smarter, and switching brands faster than you can say ‘multi-buy’. Unsurprisingly, price has topped the list of purchase drivers again this year, and promotions are swaying shoppers who might have been loyal to certain brands just 12 months ago.

What does this mean for recruitment? It means value-driven roles are on the rise – think margin-driven department and store managers who can squeeze the most out of every cent. Employers will pay more for retailers who have a proven track record of controlling costs and driving profit.


Healthier eating = smarter staff

While price matters, consumers are still making room in their trolleys for healthier options. They’re avoiding ultra-processed foods, scrutinising labels, and reaching for locally grown veg and products with clear health benefits.

Cue the rise in recruitment for fresh food talent. In recent months we’ve seen a noticeable bump in roles like fresh food managers, in-store bakers, and even chefs for supermarket delis. And it’s not just back-of-house, front-line staff are increasingly expected to have a working knowledge of nutrition, allergens, and sustainable ingredients.


Sustainability isn’t a buzzword – it’s a hiring driver

We’ve known for a while that shoppers care about sustainability. But now they expect it. They want to know where their food comes from, whether it’s been grown ethically, and how much plastic is involved in getting it to the shelves. Local produce is winning hearts (if not always wallets), and many shoppers are prioritising brands that support the environment.

Retailers are responding not just with greener supply chains, but with new roles Think sustainability officers, ethical sourcing leads, and packaging specialists. In a nice twist, many of these hires are being used in employer branding too – especially when attracting Gen Z talent who want to work somewhere that matches their values.


Tech is taking over – and it’s hiring too

It’s not just what we’re buying, but how we’re buying it that’s changing. With so many customers now using apps, scanning as they shop, or having groceries delivered to their door, retailers are doubling down on digital. And that means new tech-savvy roles in every corner of the store – from online department managers and back-office managers to social media managers.

Yes, many stores hire people to run their Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook pages.

You don’t have to be a data scientist to work in-store, but if you can comfortably switch between a till screen, an online order dashboard, and a slightly frazzled customer, you’re gold.


Culture and brand matter more than ever

In a job market where retail candidates have more choice, how a business feels is becoming a bigger deciding factor than ever. Employees want flexibility, progression, and purpose. They’re choosing to work for retailers who invest in their people, support the community, and don’t just talk about values but live them.

One of the most successful retailers we partner with don’t just promote their green credentials to customers. They talk about them in job ads, onboarding, and internal communications. And guess what? It’s working. Their retention is up, and so is morale.


The takeaway?

If retailers want to stay ahead, they need to hire with their customers in mind. And right now, those customers want affordable, ethical, healthy food served by staff who understand their values. It’s no longer enough to fill shifts. We need to build teams that reflect the future of food.

For more information call us on 01 814 8747 or email nikki@excelrecruitment.com.