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Marks & Spencer to cut 7000 jobs after coronavirus pandemic hits trade


By Ian Duncan

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There is no word yet on how a redundancy announcement by Marks and Spencer could affect staff at the Inverness store.
There is no word yet on how a redundancy announcement by Marks and Spencer could affect staff at the Inverness store.

Marks & Spencer has announced plans to cut 7000 jobs over the next three months across its branches and management roles.

The move follows what was described as "a material shift in trade" during the coronavirus pandemic.

It is not yet known how the move will affect its Highland outlets, including the Inverness branch in the Eastgate Shopping Centre.

Sales of clothing and home goods in stores are well below figures for last year though online sales and home deliveries were performing well.

The company has said it hopes a majority of the cuts will be through voluntary redundancies and early retirement.

M&S said it was too early to predict exactly where a new post-Covid sales mix will settle and it must act now to reflect current changes.

Total sales in clothing and home goods have dropped by 29.9 per cent in the eight weeks since shops reopened – in-store sales are down by 47.9 per cent with online sales up by 39.2 per cent.

Last month it announced 950 store management and head office jobs were at risk because it needed to accelerate its restructuring.

Chief executive Steve Rowe said: "In May we outlined our plans to learn from the crisis, accelerate our transformation and deliver a stronger, more agile business in a world in which some customer habits were changed forever.

"Three months on and our 'Never the Same Again' programme is progressing; albeit the outlook is uncertain and we remain cautious."

M&S employs almost 78,000 people, most of them in the UK, and the bulk of the latest job cuts are expected to be among shop floor workers, with about 12 per cent of customer assistant roles going.

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