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Hundreds of jobs at risk as Waitrose plans store closures

Upmarket UK grocer Waitrose has announced it is to close six of its stores and reshuffle its senior management structure in moves that put around 600 jobs at risk.

The retailer said it intends to close stores in Palmers Green, Hertford, Staines, Cardiff Queen Street, Leek and Huntingdon next year, and had already entered into discussions with staff this week.

Waitrose also announced that it is to remove all department managers from its 350 UK outlets, with 486 becoming deputy store managers while other roles would be removed gradually over the next three years through retirement, staff turnover and voluntary redundancies.

Despite a strong Christmas trading period, where sales at its established shops were up 2.8%, the UK brand enjoyed a torrid year last year where operating profits plummeted 58% in the first six months to July.

Such were its travails that the retailer halted plans to open seven new stores last year, which resulted in a £25m writedown for its parent company, the John Lewis Partnership.

Commenting on the impending raft of store closures, Ben Stimson, Waitrose Retail Director, commented: “We’d always try hard to avoid closing branches, but we review how our branches are doing commercially and respond where we have to.

“We’ll be consulting with our [staff] on these proposed closures and will give them all the support they need.

“We’ve successfully trialled a flexible way of working that enables us to give even better service to our customers. We now plan to adopt this model in all our supermarkets.”

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