Thousands of Sainsbury’s jobs at risk as UK supermarket shakes-up management

Thousands of Sainsbury’s jobs are at risk as the supermarket seeks to shake-up its management structure.

The announcement comes shortly after Tesco put more than 1,500 staff into a consultation period as it prepared to cut around 800 jobs.

Read more: Tesco announces it is cutting 800 jobs

Structural changes in the retail industry, combined with higher costs from business rates and the national living wage, have been driving job cuts at supermarkets.

In October, Sainsbury’s said it was axing 2,000 jobs as part of its plan to achieve £500m in savings over the next three years. The changes affected staff in the supermarket’s HR teams in Manchester, Coventry, Edinburgh, and London.

Now, the grocer is cutting store management jobs across both its supermarkets and convenience stores. These roles will be replaced with fewer, more highly-paid management jobs.

Simon Roberts, retail and operations director of Sainsbury’s, said: “The proposals will introduce a more efficient and effective structure, designed to meet the challenges of today’s retail environment. They will deliver cost savings to be invested in our customer offer and in our colleagues as they continue to provide the very best service for our customers.

“Our intention is not to reduce overall headcount as a result of these proposals.”

At time of writing, Sainsbury’s share price was up 0.54 per cent to 258p.