UK supermarket giant Tesco has said it is to recruit 12,000 extra staff for the busy Christmas period.

The UK’s largest supermarket chain, which already employs 220,000 staff, said it has increased its temporary Christmas employee intake to help cope with seasonal consumer demands.

Tesco said the new staff will be employed throughout the UK, across 780 stores, with more jobs being created both behind the scenes and on the shop floor to support the company’s round-the-clock operations. In particular the company said it aims to increase the number of checkout staff, bag-packers, customer service staff, stock replenishment staff and dot.com pickers.