High Street giant Marks & Spencer has announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs after seeing a “material shift” in trade during the coronavirus pandemic.
M&S said it plans to reduce the number of roles at the retail chain’s central support centre, in its regional management and UK stores over the next three months.
The company said it had learnt to work "more flexibly" during lockdown, using the same staff to work on both the food aisles and clothing sections of stores.
New Microsoft technology will also allow it to reduce layers of management, M&S said.
“We expect a significant proportion will be through voluntary departures and early retirement. In line with our longstanding value of treating our people well, we will now begin an extensive programme of communication with colleagues,” M&S said.
It also expects to create “a number” of new jobs as M&S invests in its online capacity.
Chief executive Steve Rowe said: “In May we outlined our plans to learn from the crisis, accelerate our transformation and deliver a stronger, more agile business in a world in which some customer habits were changed forever.
“Three months on and our Never the Same Again programme is progressing; albeit the outlook is uncertain and we remain cautious.
“As part of our Never The Same Again programme to embed the positive changes in ways of working through the crisis, we are today announcing proposals to further streamline store operations and management structures.
“These proposals are an important step in becoming a leaner, faster business set up to serve changing customer needs and we are committed to supporting colleagues through this time.”
In July, the company warned that it was planning to cut 950 jobs as part of plans to reduce store management, but the announcement today of 7,000 job losses was much bigger than anticipated.
Sales in clothing were down 38 per cent in the last 13 weeks, the company said.
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