LONDON BRIEFING:SOMETIMES you have to feel just a little bit sorry for Tesco. When Britain's biggest retailer announced on Monday that it plans to create 20,000 jobs, it must have been hoping to win some plaudits.

British prime minister David Cameron was certainly delighted, describing it as a “massive confidence boost” for the economy from a company that is already the UK’s largest private-sector employer.

But the announcement was greeted rather less than enthusiastically by others, who questioned how real the jobs were, accusing the company of failing to strip out posts that will be lost through retirement or redundancy over the two years of the jobs creation plan.

There was also confusion over how many of the new jobs would be full time.

Compare the Tesco reaction to the joy that greeted news that the Japanese car manufacturer Nissan is to build its new compact car in Sunderland, creating 2,000 jobs in the process. There was no criticism of Nissan for headlining the jobs figure, even though only 400 will actually be created at the car plant – the bulk of the posts, 1,600, will be created by companies in the Nissan supply chain. And, unlike Tesco, the Nissan project is benefiting from a £9.3 million (€11.2 million) government grant.

Nonetheless, it’s a big boost for the manufacturing heartland of Britain’s northeast, where almost 3,000 jobs are under threat at the Vauxhall plant in Ellesmere Port. US owner General Motors is reviewing its operations, which could lead to the closure of the Vauxhall factory, one of the region’s biggest employers.

Despite the suspicion, Tesco’s job creation plan is a welcome boost to employment, particularly for young people, as they will be the focus of the new posts. Of Tesco’s existing 290,000 British workforce, a quarter are under 25. More than a million 16- to 24-year-olds are currently unemployed in Britain.

It should also be good news for Tesco shoppers, as the group is targeting customer service, with plans for “significant” investment in additional staff hours and training on fresh produce and counter services.

Tesco’s core UK business is in need of urgent attention following the group’s admission that it suffered its worst Christmas in decades last year and that profits were likely to fall in 2012. Its dominant share of the UK grocery market is also under attack and in recent months has slipped below 30 per cent for the first time in seven years.

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Britain’s biggest mortgage lenders celebrated the third anniversary of the lowest interest rates on record by raising the cost of home loans for more than a million borrowers.

As we move into the fourth year of a 0.5 per cent base rate, state-supported Halifax (owned by Lloyds Banking Group) raised rates on its standard variable mortgages from 3.5 per cent to 3.99 per cent while state-owned RBS/NatWest upped its rate to 4 per cent, from 3.75 per cent.

The timing of the move heightened the anger of consumer groups, which have repeatedly accused the banks of profiteering during this unprecedented era of rock-bottom rates.

The 4 per cent charge now being levied on borrowers is in sharp contrast to the paltry 0.2 per cent offered on most instant access savings accounts. It is also well adrift of the 1 per cent at which the banks have helped themselves to the European Central Bank’s cheap money.

In total, Britain’s big four banks, including Lloyds and RBS, have taken advantage of the central bank’s backdoor quantitative easing to the tune of more than €37 billion.

Banks blame higher money market rates for their move, but the gap between base rates and the average mortgage rate is now at its greatest since the Bank of England started collecting the data in 1995.

For savers, it’s worse. They have lost out on £76 billion of interest in the last three years, according to research from the pressure group Save Our Savers. That’s the difference between the £117 billion they would have earned on collective saving of £1.1 trillion before rates were cut in 2009 and the £41 billion they’ve actually collected since then.

Speaking to MPs at Westminster last week, deputy Bank of England governor Paul Tucker said that while he had “great sympathy” for savers, low rates were playing a vital role in rescuing the economy.

That might give savers a warm glow in as they play their part for the greater good, but, with base rates thought unlikely to rise until well into next year, it won’t make their interest statement look any healthier.

Fiona Walsh writes for the

Guardian

newspaper in London