Tesco adds 16,000 jobs in e-commerce

Finally some good news from a British retailer: Tesco is going to add 16,000 jobs to its – already sizeable – e-commerce staff, among which 10,000 order pickers and 3,000 drivers. The increase comes courtesy of the Covid-19 crisis and its positive influence on online sales.

1.5 million customers each week

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the online share of Tesco’s sales has almost doubled from 9 % to 16 % of total sales. The group now thinks its revenue from e-commerce will rise from 3.3 billion pounds to 5.5 billion pounds (6 billion euros). As Tesco doubled its online capacity, the number of customers has risen from 600,000 to 1.5 million per week.

This exceptional growth requires more staff, so the retailer has decided to create 16,000 permanent jobs on top of the 4,000 new positions that had already been created since the beginning of the pandemic. More than half of these jobs are order pickers in warehouses (10,000) and drivers for deliveries (3,000), but there also are new positions in stores and distribution centres.

The retailer hopes to fill most of the new permanent positions with people who currently occupy temporary jobs: they will be the first to have a chance to apply. Afterwards, any remaining job will be opened to external candidates. The number of new permanent positions may still rise over that 16,000, as the retailer says its online sales keep on growing.