John Lewis Partnership plans 11,000 job cuts as it slashes redundancy pay

Sources said at least 10% of the group’s 76,000-person workforce “could go” across the group’s head office, supermarkets and department stores, according to The Guardian.

The number of roles across the business is expected to be “gradually reduced” over several years by both not replacing staff who leave as well as redundancies, sources added.

JLP first warned about the potential job cuts in March 2023 as it outlined plans to reduce costs and boost efficiency across the business through the increased use of technology.

The business also wrote to workers last week to confirm cuts to its redundancy package, with the group now offering one week of pay a year of service instead of two, for anyone being made redundant from February 1, 2024.

JLP said this was due to the current terms being “higher than typical market practice” that “come at a very high cost”.

In an internal memo, first seen by The Telegraph last week, JLP said: “Against all of our competing priorities for investment, it’s fair to say that the high cost of redundancy pay has been one of the things that have prevented us from moving as quickly as we’ve wanted to transform ourselves for the future, and has restricted our ability to invest more in pay.”