Yesterday’s announcement of £3bn profits at Tesco made them the world’s second biggest retailer to US giant Wal-Mart. The good news for us is their plant to create 26,000 jobs this year – 11,000 of them here in the UK – and plans for expansion will give the construction industry a boost too. If you think there’s no career for you in stacking shelves, think again: watch my friend Hannah gives her spin on working for the big daddy of retail. And here’s the clever chaps at GRB on the retail sector in general.

Yes, yes, yes – we’re screwed as a nation with unemployment looking set to reach the dizzying heights of 3 million once again. Hurrah then for the establishments we previously thought were pretty odious: the supermarkets. They will provide nearly 30,000 new jobs this year; figures buoyed by the news that Asda plans to take on 7,000 more staff, some of which will be housed in 15 new stores. 2,000 of those new posts will be in handling their home shopping business Asda.com. All the major supermarkets are hiring it seems, except for M&S which is adding 1,200 to the unemployment pot. Don’t let a lack of worldliness or intelligence stop you from applying to Asda – I went by accident on Monday when the man on check-out held out a bulb of garlic and said “can you tell me what this is?� I replied that Mrs Hanson needed it as an ingredient for a sauce. “No,� he said, “what’s it called? I need its name to be able to ring it up.�

Last week, we all reached for the large bottle of aspirin; not because Lucy Pinder got voted off Big Brother, but the High Fliers Research reported graduate intake is to be cut across the board by 17%. But hats off to Aldi who piped up that they will be offering 150 graduate management positions this year as opposed to 100 in 2008, following a 25% increase in sales. The budget retailer hit the headlines this week for its university leaver’s package offering a starting salary of £40,000 rising to £60,000 with the use of an Audi company car. This is the top earning graduate scheme in the UK. Graduates at Aldi will receive training in retail management, operations, financial administration, logistics, property management, leadership skills, commercial awareness and customer service. The times they are a-changin: “What do you want to be when you grow up, little Johnny?â€� “A discount retailer.â€�

Waitrose is buying 13 Co-operative stores and opening 9 new branches – so what? I’ll tell you what: it means 4,000 new jobs. Co-op isn’t in trouble, regulators have told them to sell on some stores in exchange for taking over rival Somerfield. Supermarkets are one of the few sectors creating rather than shedding jobs. Big boss of Waitrose cuddly Mark Price says its proof that those businesses that continue to invest and expand in tough times, come out much stronger when the economy picks up. The whole sector is coming out fighting: Sainsbury’s intends to create 5,000 new jobs this year, and 1,000 at Tesco. Meanwhile, Kerry Katona employer Iceland has bought 51 former Woolworths stores, creating 2,500 new jobs. No wonder the good-looking chap in this video was so pleased with himself…

A good start to 2009 from my two favourite brands: Dandy outfitter Liberty has stuck two sartorial fingers up at expectations with Christmas sales the best on record thanks to tourists coming over and taking advantage of the pound. Waitrose too saw a 41% surge in trading. Waitrose’s owner, John Lewis (who also saw sales increase), said 23 December was the supermarket chain’s busiest ever trading day. Financial data provider Experian said on Wednesday that visits to UK High Streets in the last week of December were up 12.8% compared with the same seven days in 2007. So there you go: if there’s one thing for certain, its uncertainty. Nobody knows nothing.