UPDATE 1-Amazon bucks UK labour market gloom with 7,000 new jobs

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LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Amazon brought a little
cheer to Britain's troubled labour market on Thursday, saying it
will create a further 7,000 permanent jobs in 2020, taking total
new hires this year to 10,000.

Last month the number of people in work in Britain suffered
the biggest drop since 2009 and the coronavirus is expected to
take a much heavier toll on unemployment when the government
winds down its huge job-protection scheme.

The one bright spot however has come from online retail and
logistics as orders surged during lockdown. Amazon's latest
recruitment will take its total UK workforce to over 40,000 by
the end of the year.

The U.S. internet giant said the 7,000 new roles will be for
warehouse workers, as well as engineers, HR and IT professionals
and health and safety and finance specialists.

The jobs will be in over 50 sites, including two new
distribution centres in the north east and central England and
at corporate offices.

It said it needed more staff to meet growing customer demand
for its services and to enable small and medium sized
enterprises selling on Amazon to scale their businesses.

Amazon has also started recruiting for more than 20,000
seasonal positions across the UK for the festive period.

Last month the Confederation of British Industry said
British retailers had cut the most jobs since the depths of the
financial crisis and expected the pace of losses to accelerate.

Well-known British retailers Marks & Spencer, John
Lewis, Debenhams, WH Smith and Dixons Carphone
have all announced job cuts in recent weeks, reflecting
the rapid shift in demand to online sales.

Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket, said it would
create 16,000 permanent roles to meet the surge in home
deliveries.
(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Kate Holton)