Job cuts loom at John Lewis as e-commerce influence grows

Tuesday, February 28, 2017 - 09:16 by Graham Miller

Four hundred admin and catering staff at John Lewis are being ousted as a result of the growth of shopping online and the fall in the value of the pound spurred on by last year’s Brexit vote, according to BBC News.

The department store giant is consolidating many of the remaining roles at a single location close to Manchester, rather than having administrators spread out across its stores nationwide.

Redundancies may extend even further, although John Lewis said that it was also creating hundreds of new jobs as it continues to reshuffle its operations to cope with the popularity of safe shopping online.

Spokesperson, Dino Rocos, said that it was important for the firm to keep pace with emerging trends and make sure that the needs of customers would be met going forwards.

In the run-up to the festive season last year, over two fifths of all purchases made with John Lewis took place via the web, suggesting that it may eventually become a retailer that deals mostly with online sales rather than thriving solely on the high street.

While jobs may be lost, John Lewis recently announced that it is still expecting to have increased its profits in the past year. But a range of economic factors, as well as the impact of the e-commerce boom, are forcing it to make some tough decisions.

Those staff that remain working for the John Lewis Partnership are also anticipating a further fall in their bonuses by the end of 2017, with the challenges facing the firm being blamed for this state of affairs.

John Lewis is an example of a traditional bricks and mortar brand which has successfully made the leap into online retail. Yet it is not immune to the uncertainties which face the market at the moment.