John Lewis confirms 1,500 job cuts after review

By

Nigel TAYLOR

Published
Jan 27, 2021

More bad news for UK retail is on the cards as John Lewis Partnership is due to confirm 1,500 job cuts to save costs this week.

The owner of John Lewis department stores and Waitrose supermarkets is expected to formally announce the cuts after completing a consultation process with staff, first announced in early November.

The employee-owned business was understood to be contacting individual workers on Wednesday to tell them if they are risk of redundancy as it seeks to save £50m as part of a wider £300m cost-saving target.

It will affect staff at its head office sites in Victoria, London, and Bracknell, Berkshire.

A spokeswoman for the Partnership told Yahoo! Finance: “This refers to the November 4 2020 update where we sadly proposed to reduce the size of our head office by April 2021.

“These difficult but necessary changes will help us to create a simpler, pacier head office that enables us to deliver our five-year Partnership Plan.”

The spokeswoman added that the company will seek to redeploy workers affected by the cuts and will provide redundancy support and funding for retraining for those staff unable to be offered new roles within the group.

Those cuts come on top of plans to close eight John Lewis stores with the loss of 1,300 jobs and the further closure of four Waitrose stores, affecting 124 staff.