06 Apr 2016 --- Nearly 600 job are at risk at UK supermarket Sainsbury’s as it overhauls the structure of its store management. Sainsbury’s said it was culling the role of store trainer from the supermarket, a job which is held by 870 employees. Instead, it is introducing around 280 new “more senior” roles called “learning and development managers”.
The move, part of Sainsbury’s £500m cost cutting drive, comes just days after Sainsbury’s rubber-stamped its $1.98 billion takeover of Home Retail Group.
In total, 590 jobs are at risk at the supermarket by the move.
Sainsbury’s said the job cuts would impact just one trainer at each of its large superstores and that it would look to redeploy staff.
The move has angered Unite, the trade union, which said the move was “severely disappointing” and added that it would campaign to reduce the number of redundancies.
Julia Long, Unite’s national officer for food and drink, said: “This is very bad news for those dedicated workers affected by the planned job losses and Unite will be giving our members maximum support at this difficult time.”
Sainsbury’s said the job cuts were not related to its acquisition of Home Retail Group.
The supermarket said: “We’ve introduced new learning and development programmes to ensure our colleagues can continue to deliver the very best service to our customers.
“Following this, we’re now creating a new management role that will provide enhanced training support across a number of stores. This position will replace the existing store trainer role.”