WORKERS are being urgently sought in Oxfordshire's food delivery and supermarket industries, as pressure increases due to coronavirus.

HelloFresh, the meal kit company based in Banbury, is advertising for 400 new staff members to meet demand for food deliveries.

It is looking to hire the staff on a three-month temporary basis, who can help with picking and packing recipes orders, and preparing deliveries for customers across the country.

Registration sessions will be held there every Tuesday and Thursday from next week, from 10am until 2pm.

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The company said arrangements are in place to 'ensure all applicants will be able to follow the necessary public health measures while visiting the facility'.

Its chief executive Laurent Guillemain said: "At uncertain times like this, community is of utmost importance and we want to encourage those in the local area whose working arrangements have been affected by recent events to get in touch.

"As an online food business, we are focused on making sure people still have access to nutritious food at this time. We’re taking all the necessary measures to ensure that the health and safety of our customers, employees and product is prioritised."

About 800 people already work at the facility.

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Rapier Employment put out a Facebook plea yesterday 'urgently recruiting' for 20 warehouse operatives, to supply supermarkets in the Didcot area.

The roles have already all been filled.

Tesco is also advertising for more than a dozen temporary roles in Oxfordshire, most of which are temporary shop assistant jobs.

Lidl in Oxford, Witney and Wallingford are all seeking stock assistants on a four-week term.

Shoppers have reported empty shelves and huge checkout queues in supermarkets across the county, and difficulty in securing home delivery slots.

The NHS has also launched a recruitment to tackle the pandemic, while Oxfordshire County Council has asked social care and occupational health students if they are interested in temporary roles.

According to research by Savoy Stewart, there have been 31,387 new job listings in the past three days on job search site Indeed.

Professions with the most were customer services with 5,252, 4,639 are for nurses, 2,838 are transport-related and 2,744 are warehouse assistants.