John Lewis cuts costs by axing 3,800 jobs

John Lewis has cut 3,800 jobs over the past year to slice costs by £26 million. Overall the retailer is on a mission to cut costs by a total of £900 million.

New filings revealed the number of staff working for the John Lewis Partnership, which runs the department stores and Waitrose grocery business, depleted from 74,300 to 70,500 over the course of a year. The majority of staff cuts were in Waitrose stores.

At John Lewis, 49,600 people worked in the supermarkets over the year to the end of January, compared to an average of 52,700 a year earlier, according to The Times. Across the partnership as a whole, it has around 10,000 fewer staff than in early 2020.

Back in January, John Lewis confirmed plans to further slash its workforce over the next five years, just days after the retail group warned of reduced redundancy payouts and pay cuts as part of its complete overhaul.

At the time, a spokesperson for John Lewis said in a statement sent to the BBC on that it "has a plan to return to profit, which involves investing heavily to enhance our customer offer, technology, stores and becoming more efficient".

They added: "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.

John Lewis revealed in March that it had returned to profit for the first time since the pandemic. The retailer’s finances also benefittedafter it axed bonuses in 2023.

Despite this, the plans to further cut its workforce by up to 11,000 employees as the retail giant aims to cut an additional £600 million, on top of the £300 million it already cut. It was recently revealed one of the Waitrose delivery warehouses was closing, putting another 500 jobs at risk.