This is the worst news Asda staff could hear
Asda to make redundancies after their competitors had a better Christmas period
I have suffered from redundancy in the past so I know the fear Asda workers will be feeling right now.
Asda are due to announce this week that they will be cutting hundreds of jobs after most of Asda’s rivals posted better-than-expected sales performances during the Christmas trading period.
Asda employs 170,000 people across the UK, including 3,000 at its head office. The redundancies will mainly affect the head office in Leeds.
It is well worth remembering that Asda dropped out of the Black Friday event in 2015 – Even though they were the comapny that brought Black Friday to the UK.
Asda has not yet released details of how it performed, and will not do so until Wal-Mart updates Wall Street next month.
Responding to an enquiry from Sky News, Asda said in a statement:
“It’s well documented that in recent years, customers have radically changed the way they shop.
“We were the first of the ‘big four’ to recognise this and launch a new strategy in 2013 yet the external pressures have accelerated at an increasingly rapid rate over the last 18 months.
“As a result, the industry faces major challenges and the certainty of permanent structural change. In the context of this, we also have to further change the way we do business.
“Today, we have started to talk to our colleagues in head office functions about what this means for them.
“We have made some difficult but necessary decisions but we must discuss these with our colleagues before we talk publicly.”
However, Andy Clarke, the chain’s chief executive, said earlier this month that it would invest “a further £500m in lowering prices and further improving quality” this year.
