7,000 Jobs to be cut from M&S

7,000 jobs at M&S is to be cut over the next three months ranging over different stores and management.

Although the online and home deliveries were strong M&S have said the coronavirus pandemic has clearly shown a “material shift in trade.” The sales for home goods and clothing are “well below” in 2019.

Marks & Spencers have stated a “significant proportion” of job loss will come at a tenth of its workforce and are hopeful this will come from voluntary redundancy and early retirement. M&S said it was "too early to predict with precision where a new post-COVID sales mix will settle. We must now act to reflect this change”. Although this pandemic will cause a significant loss for the company it showed "more flexibly and productively", with staff multi-tasking and moving between different departments.

Clothing and home dropped 29.9% in the eight weeks since shops reopened, with store sales falling 47.9% and online beaming 39.2%. M&S boss Steve Rowe stated at the peak of the coronavirus customers might "never shop the same way again" after the crisis is something of the past.

Last month the retailer announced 950 store management and head office jobs were at risk because it needed restructuring. As well as this news Rowe said: "In May we outlined our plans to learn from the crisis, accelerate our transformation and deliver a stronger, more agile business in a world in which some customer habits were changed forever… Three months on and our 'Never the Same Again' programme is progressing; albeit the outlook is uncertain and we remain cautious.”

He went on to further suggest "further streamline store operations and management" were an "important step in becoming a leaner, faster business set up to serve changing customer needs".

A "massive reduction" in the M&S workforce. The retailer was "desperately attempting to reposition the business towards a new-normal emerging in the sector”, The Retail Economics chief executive Richard Lim stated. "Retailers were already battling with the pace of structural change facing the sector but the impact of the pandemic has been a step-change for the industry.”

He said retailers are currently in "survival mode, preserving cash and hanging on for more sustainable levels of demand to return. But the way we shop has changed on a permanent basis for many parts of the sector almost overnight. The reality is that many more retailers will fail and the number of job losses will ramp up as government support is withdrawn. This is the calm before the storm.”