Supermarket Tesco has announced that it will create 16,000 new permanent roles to support the growth of its online business.

The new roles are in addition to the 4,000 permanent jobs already created since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The jobs 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.

Tesco says it 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 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.”

In April, Tesco became the first retailer to fulfil one million online grocery orders in a week. Tesco now serves nearly 1.5 million customers a week online, up from around 600,000 at the start of the pandemic. As the supermarket’s online business continues to grow, it says the number of new roles may increase further in the coming months.

Before the pandemic, around 9% of Tesco’s sales were online. The figure is now more than 16% of sales, with Tesco expecting online sales of over £5.5bn this year, up from £3.3bn last year.

Jason Tarry, Tesco UK & ROI CEO, said: “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.

“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.”