John Lewis will return to profit this year, its chairman Dame Sharon White has said, as the retailer prepares to cut as many as 11,000 jobs as part of a drastic turnaround plan.
After the partnership, which also controls Waitrose, stumbled to a £234 million loss the previous year, Dame Sharon assured the staff that it will “more than break-even.”
Dame Sharon warned staff members to get ready for “quite big changes and quite bold changes” in a video message.
It was revealed a few days ago that John Lewis was thinking of reducing its 76,000 employees by at least 10 per cent, or 11,000 workers, over the course of the following five years. Additionally, it is halving employee redundancy pay, citing the necessity to lower costs.
John Lewis is actively working to eliminate expenditures from the company that total £900 million.
In the memo distributed to staff members, Dame Sharon and Nish Kankiwala, the CEO of the John Lewis Partnership, stated that layoffs would only be used as a last resort and that the partnership was already having to replace 30,000 departing employees annually.
