Raley's Hires 775 New Employees To Help During Coronavirus Pandemic
NATOMAS (CBS13) - The coronavirus has made Amanda Fiddyment, a middle school history teacher, go from walking the halls to walking the aisles as an e-cart shopper Bel Air.
It's a much-needed job giving her family a fresh source of income.
"My sister and brother-in-law own their own small bakery in town and they're struggling right now because a lot of their clients are having to cancel parties and weddings," Fiddyment said. "So I'm hoping that this can help them."
Fiddyment said this job is also about lending a helping hand.
"I applied for the job to help my community. So people who aren't able to come shop at the store can get their groceries," she said.
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She's one of the 775 people Raley's has hired over the last week to help those who are out of work due to the coronavirus. Raley's told CBS13 that many of the new employees were previously employed by local professional sports teams and local restaurants.
The grocery giant said these recent hires are getting trained at an accelerated rate on the store's computer systems, the store itself and dealing with items that are out-of-stock.
"So what we've done is essentially you have about three days of four-hour training each day. Once that happens, you're going to hit the ground running," Chelsea Minor, Corporate Director of Public Affairs for Raley's, said.
It's something that didn't take Fiddyment too long to master.
"Instead of looking after 40 students in the classroom and making sure that they're understanding the curriculum and answering the question they have, I'm shopping 3 orders at the same time and answering questions customers have," Fiddyment said.
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Fiddyment is only on her second day searching high and low for what customers want at the store. She told CBS13 this new paycheck is helping her and the employees get by in such an uncertain time.
"It's wonderful to have Raley's as part of our community knowing that they're taking care of their citizens," Fiddyment said.
Raley's said it has reached the max amount of people it can hire at this time after all vacant jobs were filled, but the grocery chain did say it will continue to assess and monitor the coronavirus pandemic and hire more people as the company needs to.