Sainsbury’s looks set to give a number of its head office jobs the chop, as the supermarket giant attempts to make £500m of savings.
The exact number of jobs to be cut will be announced next month, City A.M. understands, but the Sunday Telegraph has reported that more than 1,000 employees could find themselves out of work. The retailer employs 3,000 staff outside of its stores.
When asked for comment on the cuts, a spokesperson for the group said: “We do not comment on speculation and would always make any announcement around jobs to our colleagues first.”
In its last annual results, released in June, Sainsbury’s reported a drop in like-for-like sales of 0.6 per cent and lowered the proposed full-year dividend to 10.2p from 12.1p the year before. The supermarket group said it had four key priorities for the year ahead, one of which was being “committed to a further £500 million of cost savings over the next three years”.
However, in its latest trading update, like-for-like sales had shot up by 2.3 per cent excluding fuel, or 1.6 per cent including.
Sainsbury’s has made a number of staffing cuts over recent times. In March it announced it was axing 400 jobs, while another 4,000 employees faced major changes to their working hours as night shifts were reshuffled. Two years ago, Sainsbury’s started the year by shedding 500 store jobs before hiking this to 800.
This latest news comes as employees at Argos, which is owned by Sainsbury’s, announced last week that they would strike for three weeks in the middle of this month over terms and conditions in their contracts.
Sainsbury’s and its competitors have been battling to keep up with the way consumers shop, while also protecting customers from inflationary pressures.
