Supermarket Tesco will create 7,500 new jobs between now and February as it opens new stores and expands in non-food areas, according to the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
A large number of the Tesco jobs will be created by the opening of the retailer’s first stand-alone non-food store, which will be unveiled in Manchester next month, the paper said. Tesco is also increasing the number of non-food products that it stocks in its other stores.
Tesco will announce the expansion plans this week when it releases its half-year results.
“In the UK there has been no significant slowdown in food sales [for Tesco] in recent months and market share gains have continued at a fast pace,” said an analyst at UBS, the investment bank.
Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco’s chief executive, has said that he wants the retailer to be as strong in non-food as it is in food. Tesco has been running trials of sales of bulky goods, such as garden furniture, in some of its stores.
