Simon English: It's not slavery – you get a job interview at Tesco

Outlook This is from a Job Centre in East Anglia offering night shifts at Tesco in return for Job Seeker's Allowance – ie nothing.

Tesco says: "The advert is a mistake caused by an IT error by Jobcentre Plus and is being rectified. It is an advert for work experience with a guaranteed job interview at the end of it as part of a government-led work experience scheme."

So it's happy to exploit young people seeking "work experience" in return for a "guaranteed job interview" (gee, thanks) but it doesn't take part in the mandatory JSA scheme that sees the unemployed bullied into slavery in return for keeping their benefits.

Tesco got slapped all over Twitter for this egregious advert yesterday and credit where it is due, it turns out not to be quite as mean as it could be.

The truth is that Tesco gives a higher level of basic pay thanother supermarkets – £7 an hour and they are fools to themselves – and its benefits package remains one of the best around.

Still, no one had any difficulty in believing that Tesco was happy to endorse servitude.

The chief executive Phil Clarke might want to think about why this is so.