E-commerce creates 16,000 new jobs at Tesco

Tesco, the UK’s largest supermarket chain, is creating 16,000 new jobs. This workforce expansion is necessary to cope with the enormous surge in online sales since the coronavirus outbreak. Among other things, the grocery retailer is recruiting 10,000 new order pickers.

The COVID-19 crisis has considerably altered British shopping habits. The share of Tesco’s revenue generated by e-commerce rose from 9% (€3.7 billion) last year to 16% (€6 billion) today, and whereas it had 600,000 online customers at the start of the pandemic, it now has nearly 1.5 million.

In order to keep up with this explosive growth, Tesco plans to create 16,000 new permanent jobs, including 10,000 order pickers and 3,000 delivery drivers. The other new vacancies will be in stores and distribution centres. These new positions come on top of the 4,000 extra employees who have been recruited since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.

A glimmer of hope

Tesco’s tremendous success is a glimmer of hope in the UK labour market, where around 750,000 jobs have been lost since the beginning of the pandemic. The retailer expects that the majority of the vacancies will be filled by employees who are currently on temporary contracts. The number of new positions may increase even further in the coming months if the number of online orders continues to grow.