Online giant Amazon is to create 7,000 new jobs in the coming months, including hundreds in the North East.
The company has already taken on 3,000 new employees this year, so by the end of 2020 it will have recruited 10,000 extra staff in this country.
The increase will take the company's total permanent UK workforce to more than 40,000.
The new jobs will be created at Amazon's warehouses, sorting centres and delivery sites as well as in its offices.
More than 50 sites will take on extra workers, including a new warehouse in Darlington, which opened in May, and two new centres opening in the autumn at the Integra 61 site near the A1 in County Durham and the Midlands.
Amazon said in July that it would be recruiting for 1,000 jobs at the Integra 61 site, while it has also bought a site on the outskirts of Gateshead where it plans to open a new centre.
Amazon said the new roles, including engineers, graduates, human resources, IT, health and safety and finance specialists, as well as the teams who will pick, pack and ship customer orders, will help it meet growing customer demand.
Amazon has already offered temporary roles to thousands of people whose jobs were impacted at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of whom will now be offered a permanent job.
Amazon is also creating more than 20,000 seasonal positions across the UK ahead of the festive period at its sites across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and at three pop-up warehouses, or "fulfilment centres".
Stefano Perego, Amazon's vice president of European customer fulfilment, said: "We're proud to be creating 10,000 new permanent roles across our UK network of fulfilment centres, sort centres and delivery stations offering competitive wages and comprehensive benefits starting on day one.
"Our people have played a critical role in serving customers in these unprecedented times and the new roles will help us continue to meet customer demand and support small and medium-sized businesses selling on Amazon.
"The new state-of-the-art robotics fulfilment centres in the North East and the Midlands, as well as the thousands of additional roles at sites across the country, underline our commitment to the people and communities in which we operate.
"We are employing thousands of talented individuals in a diverse range of good jobs from operations managers and tech professionals through to people to handle customer orders."
But a note of concern has been warned by a local union chief.
Beth Farhat, North East regional secretary of the TUC, said: "Prior experience tells me Amazon’s investment will bring with it a poor record on health and safety and a strong disregard for workers’ rights.
"We’ve seen a decade of stagnant wages for families across the North East. Amazon risks entrenching that problem unless they recognise a trade union and guarantee good quality jobs and a safe work environment.”
