Sainsbury’s will cut 400 in-store jobs to offset their loss of market share to convenience stores, discounters and online shopping, the Guardian has reported.
The retailer is doing away with the position of price controller at its supermarkets, leading to hundreds of job losses, according to the newspaper.
Price controllers ensure that the price labels are on supermarket products are correct, but this job will now be taken on by workers in other positions. Night shifts will also be scrapped at 140 Sainsbury’s stores, affecting the rotas of 4,000 workers.
The changes to the retailer’s business model follow significant shifts in British consumers’ shopping habits. Sainsbury’s posted steady Christmas sales figures in 2016, with encouraging growth in its online groceries and convenience channels. But over the past few years the Big Four supermarkets have all lost market share to discounters Aldi and Lidl, convenience stores and online shopping services such as Amazon Prime and Ocado.
In response they are trying to make their stores more efficient and cheaper to run. A Sainsbury’s spokesperson told the Guardian: “We regularly review our business to ensure we are operating as efficiently and effectively as possible and our resources are in the right place, so that we can provide our customers with the best possible service.
“Following a recent review, we are making some changes to administrative roles and night shift patterns in a number of stores, subject to consultation.
'We appreciate this will be a difficult time for those colleagues affected by the changes and will support them in any way we can.”
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