A Facebook post shared on 7 November 2019 claims the supermarket chain Spar has a number of jobs available in South Africa over the 2019 holiday season.
The post looks like an advert and lists “Available Positions” next to a photo of a woman in a Spar-branded uniform.
In the description to the post, the positions are listed again, which include bakers, cashiers, cleaners and drivers.
Instructions are given, in isiZulu, to click through to multiple links to apply for the jobs, and to comment “Help” and share the post in other Facebook groups. The more you share, it notes, the higher your prospects of “being called for job interview”.
The post was widely shared and flagged as possibly false by Facebook’s fact-checking system.
Is Spar in South Africa advertising jobs on Facebook? We investigated.
A number of jobs previously advertised in the same Facebook group have been found to be fake.
And none of the links listed in the post are to official Spar websites. The links redirect to an unprofessional looking website titled “Apply Online Jobs”. A number of government jobs are listed on this website, but not any jobs at Spar.
The ad itself also doesn’t look professionally designed, like you might expect from a major retailer. Text is cut off at the corners, and the images are grainy. Two Spar logos pasted across the main image do not line up, while the contact page uses a Gmail account.
Spar’s official South African website says that the company advertises jobs on South African online recruitment platform PNET.
“We have teamed up with PNET, one of South Africa’s largest online career portals, to advertise vacancies,” the Spar website says.
Africa Check also spoke to Val Pillay from the service bureau at Spar’s head office.
“We do not advertise any vacancies on Facebook,” she said. “But I can only speak for vacancies at the head office.”
Pillay told us that job requirements may change from store to store, as each store has its own owner. The ad however does not single out any store.
But Spar’s South Africa head office is not advertising jobs on Facebook, and you should treat such ads with caution. – Butchie Seroto
The post looks like an advert and lists “Available Positions” next to a photo of a woman in a Spar-branded uniform.
In the description to the post, the positions are listed again, which include bakers, cashiers, cleaners and drivers.
Instructions are given, in isiZulu, to click through to multiple links to apply for the jobs, and to comment “Help” and share the post in other Facebook groups. The more you share, it notes, the higher your prospects of “being called for job interview”.
The post was widely shared and flagged as possibly false by Facebook’s fact-checking system.
Is Spar in South Africa advertising jobs on Facebook? We investigated.
Hints post is bogus
A number of jobs previously advertised in the same Facebook group have been found to be fake.
And none of the links listed in the post are to official Spar websites. The links redirect to an unprofessional looking website titled “Apply Online Jobs”. A number of government jobs are listed on this website, but not any jobs at Spar.
The ad itself also doesn’t look professionally designed, like you might expect from a major retailer. Text is cut off at the corners, and the images are grainy. Two Spar logos pasted across the main image do not line up, while the contact page uses a Gmail account.
Spar advertises jobs on recruitment website
Spar’s official South African website says that the company advertises jobs on South African online recruitment platform PNET.
“We have teamed up with PNET, one of South Africa’s largest online career portals, to advertise vacancies,” the Spar website says.
Africa Check also spoke to Val Pillay from the service bureau at Spar’s head office.
“We do not advertise any vacancies on Facebook,” she said. “But I can only speak for vacancies at the head office.”
Pillay told us that job requirements may change from store to store, as each store has its own owner. The ad however does not single out any store.
But Spar’s South Africa head office is not advertising jobs on Facebook, and you should treat such ads with caution. – Butchie Seroto
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