Wed, 14th January 2009

It's not all doom and gloom on the retail high street

Thousands of new jobs to be created in some of the major retail food companies this year.

Tesco is creating 10,000 across the UK business, Morrisons over 5,000, Sainsbury's up to 4,000 and Iceland 2,500. New jobs will be established across the Morrisons business including positions such as butchers, fishmongers and bakers. Morrisons will also boost its training programme which aims to train 18,000 employees in its first year. Morrisons' announcement comes only days after Sainsbury's announced that it intends to recruit up to 4,000 new staff this year and will keep on about 2,000 of the temporary Christmas staff. Iceland stores have also just bought 51 of the former Woolworths stores which will create 2,500 jobs.

Usdaw General Secretary John Hannett commented:"These are really good news stories at a time when job losses, many in retail, are announced on an almost daily basis. Even though we are going through challenging economic times, it's clearly not all doom and gloom on the retail high street."