Sixty new full and part-time jobs are being created at two Tesco superstores as customers are encouraged to shop around the clock.

The store at Oxford Retail Park in Cowley will be open 24 hours a day, six days a week from Monday (August 10), as part of a nationwide drive to stay ahead of rival chains including Sainsbury and Asda.

The Ambassador Avenue outlet is now one of 63 across the country which will trade from 8am on Monday to 10pm on Saturday night.

The Abingdon store in Marcham Road is also opening on a 24-hour basis and about 30 new staff will be hired at both supermarkets.

Staff will only be allowed to take a short breather on Sunday, when doors will only open from 10am to 4pm, or from 11am to 5pm, due to Sunday trading restrictions.

The 30 new jobs will be placed on notice boards in the store and job seekers will be able to pick up an application form from the customer service desk.

Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy said: "Opening 63 stores around the clock in virtually every major city in the UK shows that we are responding to the large-scale changes in British society.

"Tesco is meeting the new lifestyles of Britain's shoppers in the 21st century." Tesco spokesman Karen Marshall added: "This is good news for shoppers in Oxford and good news for job seekers."

The first Tesco 24-hour store opened in June last year. Since then, customers have repeatedly asked for more stores to stay open through the night.

Research carried out by Tesco bosses at the 26 existing 24-hour stores shows that customers shopping between midnight and 6am include doctors, nurses, police officers, milkmen, lorry drivers and journalists.

Some are buying just a few basic items but many are doing the full weekly shop and avoiding the queues because there are fewer shoppers.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.