John Lewis Partnership plans to cut at least 10% of its 76,000 workforce. Credit: Jon Candy/ Flickr (Creative Commons).

The John Lewis Partnership, owner of John Lewis and Waitrose, is considering a reduction of up to 11,000 jobs within the five years to 2028, the Guardian has reported. 

The move could affect at least 10% of its current 76,000 employees across departments including its head office, supermarkets and department stores. 

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The company told Reuters:  

“The John Lewis Partnership has a plan to return to profit, which involves investing heavily to enhance our customer offer, technology and stores and becoming more efficient. 

“This is working and performance is improving, but as we have already announced, that sadly means reducing the number of partners we need in our business.”  

The potential scale of the job cuts was highlighted after the John Lewis Partnership, which operates as a trust owned by its employees, informed its workforce of a reduction in its redundancy pay package terms. 

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From 1 February 2024, the redundancy package will be halved to offer one week of pay per year of service – down from two. 

The company explained the change as a necessary step to free up cash and described its need for a more affordable redundancy policy, noting that the existing package exceeded typical market standards and was financially burdensome.  

The partnership redundancy pay is provided in addition to the statutory redundancy pay mandated by the government. 

In a separate development, Swedish fashion retailer H&M announced plans to close stores and cut 588 jobs in Spain. 

The retailer intends to close 28 stores in the country, Reuters confirmed. 

In a joint statement, Spanish unions CCOO and UGT said that the job cuts are for “unspecified organisational, productive and economic reasons”.