Tesco sees tough 2009 but will create 10,000 jobs

LONDON (Reuters) - Tesco said Tuesday it was expecting a difficult 2009, but shrugged off suggestions it was losing ground to its rivals.

"Against the overall background of, I suspect, rising unemployment and economic slowdown it will be a tough year," Finance Director Andrew Higginson told Reuters, adding an economic slowdown was affecting the group across the globe.

Earlier Tuesday, the country's biggest retailer reported a 2.5 percent rise in underlying sales for the seven weeks to January 10, which analysts expect to be the weakest Christmas performance from the top four supermarket groups.

Group sales were up 11.6 percent.

"In this market to have grown the business by 11.6 percent -- I can't imagine any big retailers who will report comparable numbers," Higginson said in a telephone interview, adding Tesco's underlying sales growth was driven largely by volumes, rather than price increases as at many of its rivals.

Higginson said Tesco expected to create around 10,000 jobs this year..

(Reporting by Mark Potter; Editing by Hans Peters)