It comes as the retail sector prepares for Cyber Monday – November 30 – the day when online sales of Christmas gifts will peak.

Mark McAllister, at Echo Personnel, which has branches in towns including Corby, Wellingborough and Kettering, said firms have been taking on extra staff to cope with the Christmas rush.

He said: "Warehouse and distribution companies which we supply to, and food manufacturing companies, have been taking on extra staff.

"We have noticed significant increases in our figures across all four of our branches."

Up to 300 agency staff are being taken on to work alongside around 700 core staff at Argos' Wincanton distribution centre in Bangrave Road, Corby, to cope with the festive demand.

And Chris Dix, manager of Sainsburys in Kettering, said the store had taken on 18 members of staff during the past four weeks, as well as temps, ready for a hectic Christmas period.

He said: "From a food retail point of view, Christmas gets earlier every year.

"People tend to leave their food shopping to the last two or three days before Christmas, but what we are seeing is people shopping in what we call the non-food areas, such as clothing and entertainment items like CDs and DVDs, earlier."

A spokesman for Tesco said the supermarket's store in Kettering had already taken on about 30 temporary employees for Christmas. And at the Wellingborough store it was expected that temporary seasonal work would be fulfilled by students who have previously been employed there and from existing staff working flexible hours and overtime.