Tesco to create 16,000 permanent jobs amid online sales surge

London: Grocery giant Tesco on Monday said it would create 16,000 new permanent jobs in Britain to support the exceptional growth in its online business since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As the supermarket's online business continues to grow, the number of new roles may increase further in the coming months, the company said. Tesco said the new roles will include 10,000 pickers to assemble customer orders and 3,000 drivers to deliver them, plus a variety of other roles in stores and distribution centres.

The supermarket expects the majority of these roles to be filled by colleagues who joined on a temporary basis at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but who now want to stay with the business permanently.

Roles will first be offered to these temporary colleagues, with remaining vacancies then recruited externally. These 16,000 jobs are in addition to the 4,000 permanent jobs already created since the start of the pandemic.

"Since the start of the pandemic, our colleagues have helped us to more than double our online capacity, safely serving nearly 1.5 million customers every week and prioritising vulnerable customers to ensure they get the food they need," Tesco UK CEO Jason Tarry said in a statement.

"These new roles will help us continue to meet online demand for the long term, and will create permanent employment opportunities for 16,000 people across the UK."

Before the pandemic, around nine per cent of Tesco's sales were online. The figure is now more than 16 per cent of sales, with Tesco expecting online sales of over 5.5 billion pounds this year, up from 3.3 billion pounds last year.