The UK's biggest supermarket chain Tesco has said it is to take on 17,000 new staff in the run-up to the Christmas season.

The jobs will include 5,000 new permanent posts.

They come on top of the firm's previously announced job creation figures, a spokesman said.

The recruitment drive is designed to deal with an upsurge in activity at Tesco stores during the Christmas period.

"We're putting record numbers of people on the shop floor to help customers in the run-up to Christmas and beyond," said Tesco retail director David Potts.

Tesco is already the UK's biggest private sector employer, with about 200,000 people on the payroll.

Leader

The chain controls an estimated 16% of the British grocery market, chalking up total annual sales of about �24bn ($33bn).

It has also turned in a solid financial performance, with pre-tax profits for the six months to August climbing 13% compared with the same period last year to �545m.

The company has been expanding rapidly, opening 55 new stores in the UK alone during the most recent financial year.

It also runs stores in nine eastern European and Asian countries.