J&B News & Updates

23.10.20

The North East’s leading independent waste management firm, J&B Recycling Ltd, has announced the creation of 20 new jobs following a positive forecast for the year despite the impact of coronavirus.

The company experienced a 30% growth in the first quarter of 2020 against the same period in the previous year, despite three departments in the company operating on reduced tonnages and services.

Vikki Jackson-Smith, CEO of J&B Recycling, said: “Our teams at J&B have shown commitment and dedication throughout our growth and even more so over these very challenging months. We are thrilled to be adding to a strong and skilled team of staff and are keen to encourage progression throughout the business into more senior level roles.

“Our recent five-year programme of ongoing investment into infrastructure, process optimisation and automation has meant J&B has undertaken a huge transformation to become an industry leading high-tech facility.”

We are now looking towards achieving our fourth consecutive year of growth despite a challenging few months that have been impacted by a very tough market environment, significantly affected by both lower commodity prices and lockdown.

Due to operational efficiencies and continued investment over the past five years the coronavirus impact on J&B has been managed and forecasts predict us to continue strong, maintaining our position in the market.

The new positions created since February 2020 include an Electrical Engineer, Maintenance Engineer, Class 1 HGV Driver, three Yard Operatives and a PR and Marketing Executive, taking the overall employment numbers to above 200.

The first three months of lockdown measures saw us suffer a reduction in commercial tonnages by 60%, but this was mitigated by each household kerbside contracted tonnages increasing by 30%.

As a company providing a key service, we reacted quickly at the start of lockdown and reorganised the company to ensure that more than 95% of staff remained working. Only 5% of staff were furloughed, where they or someone in their household needed to shield, or if they could not be temporarily relocated to another role within the company.

Keep an eye on our careers page for any future vacancies.