Halfords launches recruitment drive for 1,000 technicians
Redditch-headquartered Halfords has launched a recruitment drive, to fill 1,000 automotive technician roles over the next 12 months.
The motoring and cycling service provider has said its Motoring Loyalty Club is exceeding expectations with a growing demand for vehicle servicing, MOTs, maintenance and repairs.
The group is looking to attract retirees back into the workforce, alongside increasing the number of women in technician roles.
In its report for H1 2023, Halfords has seen strong revenue growth of 31.4% compared to 2020.
Its service-related sales represent 42.6% of group revenues in the period and are expected to reach around 48% of sales for the whole year, following the acquisition of Lodge Tyre. Lodge Tyre will also mean motoring represents around 77% of total sales with more than half of group sales expected to come from services in 2024.
Halfords acquired LTC Trading Holdings and its subsidiary Lodge Tyre Company in a deal worth £37.2m in October.
Lodge Tyre has depots throughout the Midlands, East Anglia, North Wales and the North West and operates from 50 garages and 248 mobile vans. The firm employs over 400 people.
The deal takes the Halfords garage services business to 656 garages, 253 consumer vans, 440 commercial vans and 9 warehouses.
Graham Stapleton, Chief Executive Officer, commented: “This has been a period of strong strategic progress and resilient financial performance for Halfords. In such a volatile macroeconomic environment, our strategy of focusing on the kind of predictable and recurring revenue that comes from motoring services and needs-based products has never been more relevant.
“Once the acquisition of Lodge Tyre has annualised, Service-related sales will account for over 48% of our revenues and we expect this to grow to over 50% next year”.
