By Bakery chain Greggs to cut more than 800 jobs
Greggs has announced plans to cut more than 800 jobs due to coronavirus.
The boss warned that the bakery chain “will not be profitable as a business” if sales continue at the rates they have been in lockdown.
In a statement posted on its employee information website earlier this week, chief executive Roger Whiteside said: “Covid trading conditions have forced this action onto our business and we are all very saddened by the need to part company with around 820 friends and colleagues, many of whom have worked with us for many years.”
He went on to say that “the battle with Covid hasn’t gone away and is intensifying further” as lockdown measures continue to be in place across the UK.
Mr Whiteside added: “At lockdown levels of sales, even after all of the mitigating action that we have taken, Greggs will not be profitable as a business and there can be no room for complacency.”
The chain – which employs 25,000 people in 2,000 shops – will be losing about 3% of its workforce.
In the three months up until the end of September, the bakery’s sales were only 70% of what they were during the same period last year.
Mr Whiteside previously warned about redundancies in September, The Sun reports.
The news comes as the pandemic leaves 782,000 people unemployed. The country’s unemployment rate stands at 4.8% for the three months up until September – up 5% from the month before, according to the Office for National Statistics.
