Morrisons is to axe more than 200 staff from its Retail People Team as it becomes the latest supermarket to announce a major cost cutting exercise to kick off 2025.
The move comes after CEO Rami Baitiéh last month hit out at the “avalanche of costs” set to hit businesses following the government’s October Budget.
Staff impacted by the changes are understood to have been involved in roles including customer experience, employee engagement, recruitment and payroll.
It follows Sainsbury’s revealing today it was axing 3,000 roles and closing the remainder of its in-store cafés as part of CEO Simon Robert’s £1bn cost saving plans.
A spokeswoman for Morrisons said: “We have recently carried out a review of our People structure to ensure we are offering our stores and sites a timely and consistent service.
“We are therefore proposing to remove the roles of Regional People Manager, Store People Manager and Case Specialist from our structure, meaning colleagues in these roles are being placed at risk of redundancy.
“The new structure will consist of a number of new central roles to support our supermarkets directly along with central HR support and additional employee relations roles. Before any final decisions are taken, we will undertake a minimum 45-day consultation process.”
Analysts have been warning of further rounds of job cuts as supermarkets face up to the economic challenges and fears over another round of food price inflation.
Earlier this month Asda confirmed it was axing 13 regional managers as part of a senior shake-up, designed to reduce duplication of roles and cut costs.
Morrisons, which attracted widespread plaudits for its turnaround under French CEO Rami Baitiéh last year, nevertheless saw only marginal sales growth of 0.4% over Christmas, according to the latest Kantar figures.
With Baitiéh due to release Morrisons’s fourth quarter and full-year results on Thursday next week, he is under pressure to keep pace with Tesco and the discounters, whilst rival Asda will this week announce a massive round of price cuts to increase competition.
The Morrisons boss has placed a strong emphasis on improving availability and service in stores since arriving at Morrisons from French giant Carrefour in 2023 to take over from David Potts.
However, news of the cuts was met with many expressions of support on social media for those losing their jobs.
One former member of Morrisons staff wrote: “I was really sad to read via LinkedIn the decision that Morrisons has made today with their People Teams. I think Morrisons has underestimated just how much the People Teams contributed to the business, especially during those Covid years when People Managers stepped up and delivered a recruitment campaign never ever witnessed.
“Thousands recruited and home shopping teams almost set up overnight to deal with the situation. Those times are what made People Managers special in my eyes. The commitment and dedication through those tough times truly added great value to the business.”
Another wrote: “I wish all my former colleagues the very best, this will be a massive loss to the business.”
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