Asda has announced 150 job cuts in efforts to cut costs to fuel its turnaround plan. The supermarket giant notified colleagues of the changes to its Leeds head office. All functions at Asda House are affected by the redundancies, including a number of senior buying manager roles following a restructure of its commercial buying team over the past month, reports say.
Asda has over 1000 stores across the UK and it is a popular supermarket choice for Brits. Asda said the changes aimed to “create larger roles with greater spans of responsibility”. It would simplify teams and support improved decision-making, it said.
An Asda spokesperson told The Grocer: “We’ve made good progress since launching our Formula for Growth plan 18 months ago, re-establishing our low-price credentials, improving availability and building new partnerships.”
“At the same time, we are operating in a highly competitive market and know we need to be more consistent across all parts of the business,” they added.
“As we move into the next phase of our turnaround, we’re making changes to our Home Office teams to simplify how we’re organised and how teams work together day to day.
“This is about making Asda simpler and faster to run by reducing complexity, improving collaboration and enabling quicker, better decisions for our customers.”
Asda reportedly has “soaring” debt interest costs and it is addressing its free-falling market share. The supermarket’s losses surged to nearly £1bn last year.
The Grocer says its online sales dropped by 8.1% as a result of the disruption, amid a wider 3.1% fall in like-for-like sales last year.
It also says Asda had cut nearly 7,500 roles across the business last year in order to cut costs.
The news comes at a challenging period for British retail, with multiple businesses contending with elevated interest rates alongside subdued consumer expenditure.