To continue reading please register or login to your OHW+ account.

A raft of new jobs at supermarkets boosted the UK employment market last month, figures revealed this morning.

Recruitment firm Adecco published its Job Creation Index, which showed that more than 45,000 new positions were announced across the UK's top 21 industries in February.

The retailing and wholesaling sector was responsible for a large chunk of the new jobs, providing 20,957 of the roles. This was helped by Asda announcing plans for 9,000 jobs nationwide, Tesco 2,965 and Sainsbury's 2,785.

Overall there were 33% more jobs created in February 2008 than February 2007.

Philip Arnold, managing director of business intelligence firm Mandis, said: "These figures seem to be aligned with recent speculation that the worst of the bad times may be over.

"However given the recent uncertainty and turbulence in the UK and elsewhere, and the dramatic gyrations in the housing and stock markets, it would be too presumptuous to predict an end to the current troubles in the UK economy."