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Morrisons Cuts Managers in Favor of More Customer-Facing Jobs

Morrisons Cuts Managers in Favor of More Customer-Facing Jobs

(Bloomberg) --

Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc is cutting thousands of managerial roles from its grocery stores across the U.K. in favor of increased shop-floor staff.

The British grocer is changing the way stores are staffed in a bid to serve customers better as competition intensifies in the supermarket industry, Morrison said Thursday in a statement. The changes will result in the removal of about 3,000 managerial roles, including those in the beer, wine and spirits sections of Morrison stores, said Julian Bailey, a spokesman for the company.

More than 4,000 net new jobs will be added, many in Morrison’s “Market Street” counters, where butchers, bakers, fishmongers and other fresh food specialists serve customers.

Morrison follows other grocery chains in trimming managerial staff as they try to survive in a market beset by brutal price pressure and competition from the discounters Aldi and Lidl. J Sainsbury Plc said this week that it was axing hundreds of back-office jobs in the wake of a failed bid to buy grocer Asda. In 2018, both Sainsbury and larger rival Tesco Plc carried out major reorganizations of their supermarkets, slimming senior posts in favor of shop-floor roles.

“This proposal means more frontline colleagues improving product availability and helping customers,” David Lepley, Morrison group retail director, said in the statement. “Whilst there will be a short period of uncertainty for some managers affected by these proposals we will be supporting them through this process and there are jobs available for everybody who wants to continue to work at Morrisons.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Deirdre Hipwell in London at dhipwell@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, Anne Pollak

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