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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Tom Knowles

UK sleepwalking into joblessness epidemic, Tesco boss warns

A Tesco staff member walks past a display of fresh vegetables. Tesco has more than 300,000 employees across the UK and Republic of Ireland.
A Tesco staff member walks past a display of fresh vegetables. Tesco has more than 300,000 employees across the UK and Republic of Ireland. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

The UK is “sleepwalking into a quiet epidemic” of joblessness with millions of people out of work and on benefits, the boss of the nation’s biggest supermarket chain has warned.

Ashwin Prasad, who runs the UK arm of Tesco, said he believed far fewer people were in work than should be and that taxpayers were spending “an ever increasing proportion of our national income on out-of-work benefits”.

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