Drama as Marks & Spencer cuts 7,000 more jobs

Another drama hits the British high streets: retailer Marks & Spencer is to cut an additional 7,000 jobs in the next three months, one in ten of the chain’s total jobs. Especially its fashion department took a bad hit from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Slimming down

The pandemic forces Marks & Spencer to take even more painful steps: just last month, it had already announced to cut 950 jobs as part of an ambitious restructuring programme. The new measures will go even further, slimming down by 7,000 jobs in stores, regional management and the support centre. The chain hopes to solve most of this by early retirement and voluntary departures, while vowing that new posts will be created in the quest for more digitisation.

The employees who remain at work, will have to become more flexible: gone are the days with separate staff for the food and fashion departments. Moreover, in cooperation with software giant Microsoft, technology will see to it that employees’ efficiency is increased.

Online growth

The new step was caused by abysmal results past quarter, which saw fashion sales drop 39 %. As more people work from home, demand for formal clothing has gone down. A rise in food sales of 2.5 % was nowhere near enough to compensate for the crater in the fashion department.

The retailer also fears the huge insecurity when it comes to how the pandemic will continue to keep people from shopping. Stores in city centres and shopping centres suffered the most, a rise in online sales (to 41 % of total sales) again was not able to compensate for bigger losses elsewhere.

Marks & Spencer is not the only British retailer in a heap of Covid trouble: Debenhams is fighting for its survival and just cut another 2,500 jobs, while John Lewis and WH Smith had announced thousands of job losses prior to that.