Morrisons to cut 720 head office jobs and recruit 5,000 shop floor staff

LONDON (ShareCast) - Supermarket group Morrisons plans to cut up to 720 roles at its head office in order to start recruiting for 5,000 shop floor staff. The move, aimed at cutting costs, is under consultation and will last for at least 45 days, the company said on Thursday.

"We need a simpler, faster and cost-conscious head office and that requires some tough but necessary decisions," explained chief executive David Potts.

However, Morrisons also announced it will start recruiting 5,000 shop floor staff to improve service, increase availability and open more checkouts.

Potts added: "We are focusing on the things that matter to our customers. That means having more of our staff in our stores." Morrisons added that an attempt would also be made to redeploy head office staff facing redundancies to other group divisions and its stores.

Broker Shore Capital hailed the move. "Morrison's central overhead has mushroomed since 2008 with limited discernible customer benefit. In a clearly more challenging and ever-changing retail industry we have become increasingly concerned about its culture and cost base and so its capability to effectively compete. Both of these factors are now being positively dealt with."