Sainsbury's Places 850 Jobs At Risk - Union

Sainsbury (Amsterdam: SJ6.AS - news) 's has announced a shake-up of roles across its major stores, with a union warning 850 posts are threatened by the changes.

Unite released a statement expressing "severe disappointment" before the supermarket chain confirmed its plans.

While Sainsbury's, which is in the process of buying Argos-owner Home Retail Group for £1.4bn, was yet to give full details it told Sky News that it hoped to redeploy many staff affected.

A spokesperson said: "We currently employ 870 store trainers. We’re now creating around 280 new Learning and Development Manager positions and all affected colleagues will have the opportunity to apply for these more senior roles.

"We will also look to redeploy affected colleagues where possible".

Unite said night workers were also affected by the reforms.

Its national officer for food and drink Julia Long, 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.

"We are severely disappointed as Sainsbury’s seems to have deep pockets when it wants as it has just forked out £1.4bn to purchase the Home Retail Group.

"We appreciate that Sainsbury’s has a good record of redeployment of staff in these situations and we will be exploring every avenue to ensure continuing employment for our members.

Major supermarket chains have embarked on changes to their head office and store operations as a consequence of the industry price war, coinciding with a period of weak inflation that has also dented profits.

Grocery deflation stood at an annual rate of -1.5% in the 12 weeks to 27 March, according to figures compiled by Kantar Worldpanel and released earlier on Tuesday.

However, the news for Sainsbury's continued to improve as it was the best performer - in terms of sales growth - among the so-called 'big four' chains.

The industry as a whole took in an extra £152m in the period compared to last year - boosted by the early Easter.