Dive Brief:

• Dollar General intends to add about 10,000 net new positions to its payroll during fiscal year 2022, the fast-growing discount retailer announced Friday.
• The new jobs represent an estimated 6% overall increase in the size of Dollar General's workforce, according to the company.
• Dollar General is looking to expand the number of people it employs at a time when businesses across the board are jostling for prospective workers against a backdrop of low unemployment.

Dive Insight:

The new jobs Dollar General is creating reflect hiring needs generated by its planned addition of new stores and distribution centers over the coming months, along with anticipated growth in its trucking division, the retailer said.

Dollar General, which opened its 18,000th store in November and debuted its first location in Idaho on Saturday, has about 1,100 new stores in the pipeline. But the company faces strong competition from other employers as it looks to bring on the staff it needs to support that growth.

The U.S. economy added 678,000 jobs in February, while the unemployment rate declined slightly to 3.8%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), exacerbating the persistent labor shortage that has been hampering efforts by retailers to draw and retain workers.

Meanwhile, employment at stores that sell food and beverages grew 4.4% in February compared with the level recorded in January, reversing a decline seen in January, the BLS reported.

Dollar General is promoting the new positions as growth opportunities, stressing in the announcement that it "works to provide a pathway for career advancement within the organization." About 75% of people who are lead store associates or hold more senior positions were selected from among people already working for the retailer, the company said.

Last September, Dollar General announced it had reached a goal set earlier in 2021 of bringing on 50,000 new workers by Labor Day and emphasized it would continue its drive to attract job applicants.

Dollar General has been facing headwinds as it expands its store fleet. The retailer saw comparable store sales fall 0.6% in the third quarter, compared with growth in that metric of more than 12% during the same period in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. Net sales rose 3.9% during the quarter on a year-over year basis, to $8.5 billion, however.

In a sign that the discounter remains popular with shoppers even as the health crisis reduces its grip, Dollar General stores recorded 28.2% more visits in December than they did in December 2019, according to data released Feb. 28 by Placer.ai.