Asda announces 1,360 redundancies

03-Jul-2014 - Last updated on 04-Jul-2014 at 13:58 GMT

More than 2,000 people were expected to be made redundant originally

Related tags Retailing

Asda’s 1,360 redundancies will help it adapt to the intense changes faced by UK retailers, ceo Andy Clarke claims, and follows a similar announcement made by Morrisons last month to cut 2,600 jobs.

Asda will make over a thousand redundancies, but the Walmart-owned retailer has said it would also create 5,630 roles as part of the major restructure. The new roles will comprise 4,008 section leaders and 1,622 section managers.

The figure is less than the 2,600 redundancies the retailer had originally suggested when it announced it would put 4,000 management jobs at Asda into a 12 week consultation in May.

Right for the business

Andy Clarke, Asda’s chief executive, said he was doing what was right for the business as a whole and the decision was “one of the most difficult I’ve had to make”.

“Whilst I genuinely believe that it is the right decision for the future of Asda, knowing that it will result in valued colleagues leaving us is not easy,” said Clarke.

“Every supermarket must adapt to the intense changes in UK retailing or they will get left behind.

“We spotted this nearly two years ago, responding with a new strategy and taking time to thoroughly examine our structures, test scenarios, talk to our colleagues and adjust our proposals accordingly.”

Difficult decision

The thorough process had resulted in the move and would affect the company's 578 UK stores, he added.

Over the coming weeks, the affected managers would either be training for their new roles or would be part of the 1,360 people expected to take redundancy of their own choice or because they did not meet the selection criteria, said Asda.

Asda’s restructure has been spurred by the increased market dominance by discounters Aldi and Lidl, which has put pressure on the big four to make changes.

Last month Lidl announced it would create 2,500 jobs in a £220M expansion, just one day after Morrisons’ boss Dalton Phillips admitted you can’t “out-discount a discounter”.

Lidl’s expansion will boost its total of stores to 620 by the end of this year, which is up from 600 on the previous year.

Sainsbury announced a joint venture with the Danish discounter Netto in a bid to take on the discounters and battle sharper price competition.

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