Supermarket giant Asda is hoping to recruit up to 8,000 ‘permanent temps’ to slash its recruitment costs and provide cover for busy times such as Christmas.

Asda currently spends £3,500 a head on hiring costs and anticipates that these off-season workers will save the firm £2.6 m in both general recruitment and training costs as they build up a permanent register of seasonal workers.

The retailer has totally bypassed recruitment agencies and advertises in job centres and its stores, said Angela Martin, head of retail, logistics and resourcing at Asda. “We have never used recruitment agencies for colleague positions,” she said. “We are a low-cost business and every cost that we incur stops us lowering prices. As a result of that we have used very few agencies.”

So far Asda has built up a register of 5,500 seasonal workers. These permanent temps will work a minimum of 10 weeks a year and are put on contracts to work an annual, rather than a weekly, number of hours. “People don’t have to commit to every week and they can work for other companies,” said Martin.

The permanent temps are able to take advantage of staff benefits such as a colleague discount card, paid annual leave and an annual performance-related bonus.

Martin claims that Asda is the only retailer currently offering this sort of contract. The decision to recruit the 8,000 permanent temps follows a successful pilot scheme. The roles will range from greeters to porters and checkout colleagues to warehouse workers.