A.S. Watson Group has announced its commitment to provide 200,000 job openings for young people globally by 2030.

The world’s largest international health and beauty retailer, which operates stores including Superdrug and The Perfume Shop, says the pledge is to give young people from all over the world the opportunities, skills and experiences to equip them for the fast-changing business landscape and kickstart their career in retail.

The jobs will span different areas of our business, including working in stores, at head office and in distribution, and the roles are multi-disciplinary from customer service specialist, to marketing, digital development, eCommerce, analytics, finance, and sustainability, to name a few.

A.S. Watson has already been investing in a range of people development programmes that combine on-the-job learning with further education.

In the UK, Superdrug and Savers Apprenticeship Scheme has been established for more than 10 years to help school leavers who wanted to gain work experience rather than formal qualifications and has been recognised as a top Apprenticeship Employer in Retail. More than 4,500 people have achieved a Retailer Apprenticeship qualification through the scheme.

Joanne Mackie, Group People Director (Europe) of A.S. Watson Group, says, “Young people are an important source of talents and creativity; by developing their skills, we can make our business stronger and fitter for the future. We are not only offering job opportunities, we’re also providing training and coaching to give young people the skills they need to work in the new world of Offline plus Online retail. We plan to provide 5 million training hours specifically for youth in our global workforce to embrace the future. We look forward to 200,000 talented young people joining us between now and 2030 to help fuel the sustainable growth engine for A.S. Watson.”