Wilko to lose 1,000 staff following redundancy consultation
More than 1,000 people are to be made redundant at value retail chain Wilko, according to reports.
Retail Week says that Nottinghamshire-headquartered Wilko has accepted 1,030 applications for redundancy from store employees and has made 19 redundancies where the firm could not redeploy staff.
In better news, the firm is reported to be recruiting for 224 supervisory roles.
Wilko started a redundancy consultation in August after it suffered an 80% drop in full-year profits.
Retail director Anthony Houghton said: “We thought long and hard about undertaking this review and knew it would be difficult.
“We also knew that it was necessary if we were to maintain our presence and continue to thrive within an ever-changing retail landscape.
“In consultation with the GMB, our recognised trade union, we listened to what team members wanted and made changes based on that.”
Chief operating officer Sean Toal added: “Despite the challenging retail landscape Wilko has seen both positive customer numbers and sales growth during 2017.
“The undeniable truth, however, was that this was not translating into positive results despite hard work to reduce costs, grow Wilko-brand product and digital sales and continue investment in IT and infrastructure.
“This is not sustainable into the future and we had to make some tough decisions to reorganise.
“As a family-owned retailer we had to balance this against our need for care, compassion and thoughtfulness to our team members.
“Wilko has ambitious plans to deliver growth through a better product and ever-improving customer experience. There is a strong new store opening pipeline and digital growth strategy that will see the retailer invest in its infrastructure to drive future growth.”
