One of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains, Morrisons, is reportedly axing 3,000 management roles as part of a huge restructuring to create more shop floor jobs.
Retail Week revealed that the company is also creating 7,000 new hourly-paid, customerfacing roles at its 500 stores.
Managers will be able to move to the new jobs, with the firm saying there will be roles “for everybody who wants to continue to work at Morrisons”, the BBC reported.
“Whilst there will be a short period of uncertainty for some managers affected by these proposals we will be supporting them through this process,” David Lepley, Morrisons group retail director, was quoted as saying. “There will also be more roles with greater flexibility that are very attractive to colleagues with families.”
The company says those in managerial jobs who want to remain working at Morrisons can stay, however, their new offer will be at the shop floor level. Front-line store staff at Morrisons earn £9 (US$12) an hour. The BBC’s consumer affairs correspondent Colleta Smith explained that the U.K.’s big four supermarkets – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons – are all making changes to try to stem the flow of shoppers switching allegiance to discount stores.
“They are all hoping to save money on staffing costs in order to be able to offer bigger discounts to shoppers in store,” she said, noting the other three had all announced significant job cuts at management level. “However, unlike Tesco’s job cuts at this point last year, Morrisons are putting more new shop floor workers behind specialist counters,” Smith said. “Rather than cutting deli counters, Morrisons are keen for their Market Street sections to help them stand out against the other big players in the supermarket wars.”
