John Lewis staff learn their fate in head office cull

John Lewis
John Lewis

The owner of John Lewis and Waitrose will reveal the extent of the jobs cull at its head office on Wednesday after it launched a consultation process with staff last year.

The employee-owned business is expected to tell individual employees if they are at risk of redundancy as it seeks to save £50m as part of a wider £300m cost-saving target. It originally said it would cut 1,500 roles.

A spokesperson said that “1,500 isn’t a new number” and “these are difficult but necessary changes” to have a “simpler” head office as part of its five-year turnaround plan.

The mutual will also provide them with up to £3,000 to retrain if they have been working for the business for at least two years.

John Lewis said last week that it will repay a £300m emergency Covid loan earlier than expected after trading picked up over the key Christmas period. The money it received from the Bank of England’s Covid Corporate Financing Facility was due back by March 15.

John Lewis stores that closed in 2020
John Lewis stores that closed in 2020

The retailer expects full-year profits to be ahead of its previous guidance of a “small loss or a small profit for 2020-21” after trading “held up better than anticipated” in recent months.

It came after the group refused to hand back the business rates relief it received for its Waitrose arm, despite the vast majority of rival supermarkets repaying the tax break following a virus-induced trading boom.

The company’s full-year results will be published on March 11. It has more than 70,000 staff. It did not provide a Christmas trading update this year and abandoned its weekly sales updates last January.

In December, Waitrose said it would not be repaying the relief it had claimed as its sister company John Lewis was forced to shut during the first and second national lockdowns.

Separately, retailer Paperchase is to be sold in a pre-pack rescue deal on Wednesday, saving about 1,000 jobs after the stationery chain fell into administration earlier this month.

It will be sold to Permira Debt Managers - a lender connected to private equity giant Permira - which has given funding to the business for over five years.

The rescue is likely to see 90 of Paperchase’s 125 stores kept on the high street by the new owner and about 1,000 jobs safeguarded, reported Sky News. There will, however, be some redundancies as some stores are permanently closed.

The cards and gifts retailer employed about 1,500 people when it went into administration earlier this month. It had been owned by another buyout firm, Primary Capital, since 2010.

Paperchase usually earns 40pc of its sales in November and December, but it was forced to shut over Christmas as Covid once again hammered high street retailers following earlier lockdowns and social distancing restrictions.