Dive Brief:
- Dollar General plans to hire up to 50,000 new employees by Labor Day, according to a press release.
- The company is looking for additional staff for its stores, distribution centers, trucking fleet and store support center.
- The hiring blitz comes as the dollar store retailer plans 1,050 new stores for fiscal 2021.
Dive Insight:
Already the largest retailer by store count, according to the company, Dollar General is eyeing further growth as it covers the country with its multiple banners.
So far in 2021, Dollar General has already opened, by leaps and bounds, more stores than any other brick-and-mortar retailer and accounts for roughly a fourth of all new stores this year, according to Coresight Research tallies.
Today, Dollar General's store count stands at more than 17,400, serviced by 27 distribution centers. In March, Chief Operating Officer Jeff Owen said the company thinks it could add a total of 13,000 additional stores, which would nearly double the company's already voluminous store count.
That represents an acceleration of past plans and comes after Dollar General's sales surged in the pandemic-defined year of 2020. That growth reversed in the first quarter of 2021, but only slightly. Compared to 2019 levels, Dollar General has made a significant leap from its pre-pandemic performance. That indicates it may have made permanent gains in customers and their purchases.
Along with its traditional stores, Dollar General is also expanding its Popshelf concept — launched last year and targeting middle-income suburban women — as well as Dollar General Plus and its smaller footprint DGX format.
Not every locality wants Dollar General and its peers adding stores. The sector has been criticized for killing off locally owned grocery stores and other retailers, and for being magnets for crime in low-income areas. Some cities have pushed back against dollar store expansion with laws aimed at slowing or limiting the stores.
As it seeks out new employees, Dollar General is offering referral bonuses to distribution center workers and $5,000 signing bonuses to drivers for its private truck fleet. Executives have pointed to the retailer's trucking fleet as a cost-savings source amid a national shortage of truck drivers.
