Jobs to be axed by pottery giant to recoup growth

Emma Bridgewater is cutting jobs and scaling back production to combat challenging trading conditions and rising costs.

The pottery firm’s Stoke-on-Trent factory and London office are being consulted over 36 planned redundancies following an increase in materials costs which have impacted the company’s forecasted growth for FY24/25.

A 13-week period of a four-day working week will also be introduced at the Hanley factory from the end of January, with no production on Mondays during this time.

The company is one of the largest employers of potters in the Stoke-on-Trent area, producing around 40,000 pieces of pottery a week to be sold worldwide.

Around 400 staff are employed across the B-Corp accredited group in Stoke-on-Trent, Bicester Retail Village, Clarks Retail Village (Somerset) and in London.

Julia Cove-Smith, CEO of Emma Bridgewater said the business, “has performed strongly over the Christmas and New Year trading period with retail sales above forecast, and new partnerships and products launching in January

“However, with costs continuing to rise and against the background of lower than anticipated sales earlier in the financial year, the business is making changes to put it in a stronger position to respond to future market opportunities. The plan includes making changes to our ceramics production timetable to allow the business to respond more flexibly at key periods of demand throughout the year.

“Very regretfully this change to our production pattern, and adjustments in supporting departments, will have an impact on our staffing levels. We understand this is difficult news for our people to hear, therefore our key priority at this time is to support all our staff throughout this period and we remain committed to continuing to communicate directly and transparently with them”.