M&S set to announce hundreds of UK job cuts this week
Supermarket giant Marks and Spencer (M&S) is set to announce plans for hundreds of job cuts later this week, according to reports, as the retailer undergoes a wide-scale restructure in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.
M&S will begin announcing redundancy plans over the next few days, which are expected to run into their thousands over the next few weeks, Sky News reported.
The job cuts will form part of the firm’s “Never the same again” plan rolled out after its results in May, which is expected to see a complete business overhaul for the company in the coming months as it adapts to the long-term impact of the pandemic.
The initial phase of the restructure will see the first cuts to M&S’s 78,000-strong workforce since most of its shops were forced to shutter at the start of lockdown.
Later job losses are expected to follow a review of costs by executives in different parts of the company such as retail and property, clothing and home, and food and international. The total number of job cuts are likely to amount to several thousand, according to reports.
The job cuts will make the UK retailer the latest chain to have taken taxpayers’ money through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), only to announce significant redundancies later on.
More than 27,000 out of a total of 78,000 M&S employees were furloughed under the government’s CJRS programme to discourage companies from laying off staff
Thousands of M&S employees have returned to work, though the supermarket group has not provided a precise figure.
It comes as the coronavirus pandemic continues to batter Britain’s high street stalwarts, with Boots, John Lewis and Harrods making significant numbers of job cuts over the last few weeks.
Earlier this month pharmacy chain Boots announced plans to axe more than 4,000 workers as part of moves to mitigate the “significant impact” of Covid-19. The job cuts will affect around seven per cent of the retailer’s workforce, and will also see the closure of 48 Boots Opticians stores around the country.
Meanwhile John Lewis said it will close eight of its UK shops, including its Birmingham and Watford department stores, putting 1,300 jobs at risk.
The significant job cuts followed warnings that chancellor Rishi Sunak’s CJRS will not be enough to protect from wide-scale job losses as the furlough scheme winds down.
Sunak admitted that he would not be able to protect “every single job” as the UK enters a “severe recession”.
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