Greggs attempts to avoid job cuts by reducing hours

Bakery chain Greggs has warned over looming job cuts as it kicked off a consultation with staff.

The company, which employs 25,000 people, has kicked off a consultation with its staff to shorten their working hours as it aims to cut costs when the Government’s Job Retention Scheme ends next month. Some 19,000 of its staff work in stores.

Greggs said: “With business activity levels remaining below normal for the foreseeable future we must change the way we work to be as productive and flexible as we can in order to protect as many jobs as possible for the long term.”

Asked about the scale of the job losses, chief executive Roger Whiteside told the Standard: “We do not know how many people we will lose in shops. We are asking people to take reduced hours. When we’re done and we say that’s as far down as we can go then we will have to lose some roles. I cannot really guess at it.

“About half the shops do not need to do much as their contracted hours are low enough. In others we need to reduce hours. In some cases we will not be able to get there by reducing hours so there will have to be job losses.”

The company today reported same-store sales in the 12 weeks to September 26 are now 71.2% of 2019 levels. Whiteside said that stores took a hit from the Eat Out to Help Out scheme in August, which tempted customers to rivals. The warm weather also dented sales.

Whiteside its 12 stores in zone 1 and 2 in London stores were struggling. He said: “London is already one of the most affected areas with people now travelling in less. If there were then a lockdown to take that actually even lower you might find some London shops are simply not worth opening.”

“It would have to get really bad before we decided to permanently close shops in London because they were strong stores before.”