Coles has recruited over 7000 people in the past two weeks as it works to address increased demand across its network.
In light of significant numbers of Australians being stood down and heightened demand in its stores, Coles further extended its recruitment drive by 5000 on March 28.
The hires come as fashion retailers - such as Cotton On - work with the supermarket to redeploy its redundant staff.
The new recruits at Coles have been fastracked through the hiring process to ensure that the supermarket can bring on new employees as quickly as possible.
Coles CEO Steven Cain said the business was delighted with the response to the recruitment callout and will continue to work with major employers and unions to find job opportunities for businesses that were recently forced to reduce team numbers.
"Coles is doing everything we can to support jobs and the economy through this challenging time, while also ensuring we can provide groceries for all Australians.
"We have been overwhelmed with the number of applications received from across different industries.
"To ensure we could act quickly, we streamlined our recruitment processes and assigned a dedicated team to fast track applications sent by corporate partners like Australian Venue Company and Virgin Australia.
"We have seen a lot of demand for roles, and where we have positions available, we are making sure that we can get people into them as quickly as possible.
"Within the last week we have also opened three new pop-up distribution centres in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria which has created more jobs in our supply chain network.
"We are also looking to open additional distribution centres to help us move more stock to stores and will help create even more jobs," he said.
Since the recruitment drive began, Coles has offered more than 6500 casual positions to applicants, as well as 430 part-time and 80 full-time management positions across the country.
By State, Coles has offered 1700 jobs in Victoria, 2000 in New South Wales, approximately 1800 in Queensland, 600 in South Australia, 700 in Western Australian, 100 in Tasmania, around 90 in ACT and 100 in the Northern Territory.