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Redundancy plans will begin in the coming days as M&S becomes the latest retail giant to scale back its workforce. The first stage of cuts will begin after the COVID-19 pandemic caused a temporary closure of its shops in March. The brand will now join Boots, John Lewis and Debenhams in succoming to the retail purge which has occurred due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Sky News, the initial batch of cuts could soon rise into the thousands.
Of the 78,000 employees, 27,000 were placed onto the furlough scheme.
However, with employers now required to begin to pay national insurance and pensions to staff, M&S becomes the latest to use the scheme before then announcing cutbacks.
Employers will be asked to pay the full amount of the scheme by the end of October.
These cuts represent part of the company’s, ‘Never the same again’ plan formulated two months ago.
It is unclearwhether the company will accept the Treasury’s £1,000 bonus for every workers who returns to work and is kept on until next year.
Chief executive Steve Rowe said in May: “Whilst some customer habits will return to normal others have changed forever, the trend towards digital has been accelerated, and changes to the shape of the high street brought forward.
“Most importantly working habits have been transformed and we have discovered we can work in a faster, leaner, more effective way.
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As of July, the number of jobs placed onto the furlough scheme reachd 9.4 million.
A further 1.2 million of employers were using the scheme with the total value of the claims costing £28.7billion.
While the scheme has saved thousands of jobs, in the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, there have been almost 650,000 job cuts since March.
In the figures, employees fell by 2.2 pecent from March to June.
This comes as Boris Johnson urged employers to bring their workforce back.
In a major change, Mr Johnson announced it was now down for the employers to bring employees back into work where it is safe to do so.
He said: “Instead of government telling people to work from home, we are going to give employers more discretion, and ask them to make decisions about how their staff can work safely.
“That could mean of course continuing to work from home, which is one way of working safely and which has worked for many employers and employees.”
