Chameleon Magazine

Wonderful news from modern Britain.

Sainsbury’s is to provide work experience for around 10,000 young people, with the government proudly backing the scheme as a way of helping youngsters into employment.

And before any cynical person suggests otherwise, this is absolutely not Sainsbury’s getting access to thousands of enthusiastic young people just as supermarkets begin preparing for one of the busiest trading periods of the year.

Christmas?

Pure coincidence.

The youngsters are apparently there to learn valuable workplace skills: turning up on time, following instructions, dealing with customers, understanding retail operations and perhaps discovering the ancient British tradition of facing a supermarket shelf while somebody asks where the cranberry sauce is.

Sainsbury’s, naturally, would never dream of taking advantage of the arrangement.

These young people are there for education, development and opportunity.

They will be supervised.

At all times.

Honest.

And should 10,000 additional pairs of hands happen to appear around stores, depots and offices while Britain’s supermarkets are preparing for Christmas, that is simply one of those remarkable coincidences that occasionally occurs when government employment policy meets corporate manpower requirements.

The government calls it work experience.

Sainsbury’s calls it opportunity.

A suspicious shopper might call it the best Christmas staffing deal since somebody invented the self-checkout.

Still, we mustn’t be cynical.

After all, if a multibillion-pound supermarket wanted thousands of extra workers over Christmas, surely it would simply employ them and pay them.

Wouldn’t it?