Polish workers are being recruited to work at Tesco stores in Oxford and Abingdon because the company can't get enough local people to fill vacancies.

Supermarket chiefs say absenteeism is another factor behind the recruitment drive in eastern Europe.

Four men from Poland started work this week on the night shift at the 24-hour Tesco Extra store in Marcham Road, Abingdon, and another 16 Polish men and women are expected to arrive over the next few months. Altogether more than 200 will be arriving at Tesco stores throughout the UK, including 20 at the superstore on the Oxford Retail Park in Cowley.

With Oxfordshire unemployment low, employers find recruitment difficult -- particularly filling shifts at busy weekends and at night.

The company refused to release absenteeism figures, but one source said last week alone more than 1,000 working hours were lost through people failing to turn up for shifts at Abingdon.

Katie Jenkins, from Tesco, said low unemployment and skills shortages had made it increasingly difficult for many UK businesses to find staff. She said: "To help tackle this we are stepping up local recruitment and also running a project to recruit a small number of Polish workers. New staff will be joining Abingdon Extra and Oxford Superstore over the next few months.

"We will continue to recruit locally wherever possible. Although the new staff represent a small proportion of our 250,000 strong team in the UK, we hope it will make a big difference in areas where they can provide valuable support to our existing people."

The Tesco empire spreads into the new EU member states in eastern Europe, including Poland -- where Tesco is now one of the leading supermarket chains employing 18,000 people.

Some of Britain's new English-speaking Polish recruits already work for the company.

Tesco's recruitment drive for 200 workers attracted 10,000 applicants. The new staff will share the same rates of pay and benefits package as existing staff -- about four times what they can get in Poland.

The Abingdon store is one of the biggest in the country and employs more than 650 full and part-time staff. Last year Tesco applied to increase the size of the store -- if approved the expansion will create more jobs.