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From job cuts to self-service, how are retailers cutting costs in 2025?

From job cuts to self-service, how are retailers cutting costs in 2025?

Despite being at the start of 2025, a host of retailers have wasted no time cutting jobs as part of various cost-saving measures.

It emerged last week that Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and River Island were just some of the few that had launched consultations with staff members as they looked to collectively shed thousands of jobs.

The British Retail Consortium reported earlier this month that around half of retailers are planning to reduce their headcount and number of hours this year, while over two-thirds are increasing prices to combat the millions of pounds soon to be added to their tax bills following announcements made in the Budget last year.

Retail Gazette takes a look at how retailers are cutting costs in 2025.

Morrisons

Last week Morrisons unveiled plans to cut over 200 jobs from its retail people team as part of a restructuring effort to save costs.

The move follows CEO Rami Baitiéh’s comments last month about the “avalanche of costs” businesses will face from increases to employers’ National Insurance contributions and National Minimum wage rises.

Roles in customer experience, recruitment, and payroll will be impacted, with the company launching a 45-day consultation process before final decisions are made.

A spokesperson for the supermarket said: “We have recently carried out a review of our People structure to ensure we are offering our stores and sites a timely and consistent service.

“We are therefore proposing to remove the roles of regional people manager, store people manager and case specialist from our structure, meaning colleagues in these roles are being placed at risk of redundancy.”

“The new structure will consist of a number of new central roles to support our supermarkets directly along with central HR support and additional employee relations roles. Before any final decisions are taken, we will undertake a minimum 45-day consultation process.”

Sainsbury’s

Sainsbury'sJust hours before Morrisons, Sainsbury’s said it would axe 3,000 jobs as part of a drive to simplify its business and address rising costs.

The supermarket will close its remaining cafés, hot food counters, patisserie, and pizza counters, and reduce senior management roles by an estimated 20%.

Sainsbury’s CEO Simon Roberts said: “We are facing into a particularly challenging cost environment which means we have had to make tough choices about where we can afford to invest and where we need to do things differently to make our business more efficient and effective.

“The decisions we are announcing today are essential to ensure we continue to drive forward our momentum but have also meant some difficult choices impacting our dedicated colleagues in a number of parts of our business.

“We’ll be doing everything we can to support anyone impacted by today’s announcements.”

River Island

River Island to cut head office jobs

After calling in advisors at the start of last week, River Island launched a redundancy programme at its London head office, with job cuts expected across several departments, including buying, merchandising, and HR.

The move comes as the embattled fashion retailer drafted in AlixPartners to help with cost-saving measures and improving profitability.

The retailer did not disclose the number of roles at risk when contacted by Drapers, or provide further details on the specific impact across departments.

Schuh

Schuh

Schuh confirmed last week that it had started a voluntary redundancy process with its staff as it looks to trim costs.

The footwear chain’s president Colin Temple told The Scotsman that “due to ongoing challenging economic conditions and rising costs, we have made the difficult decision to restructure our business”.

“We are going through a voluntary redundancy process in some areas of business,” he said.

Temple did not provide details of how many jobs were at risk or what departments were affected by the restructure.

The retailer is also understood to be reviewing its 120+ store portfolio “to ensure it was able to adapt to the current environment”.

PrettyLittleThing

PrettyLittleThing to cut jobs in restructuring move

PrettyLittleThing is set to cut more than 50 jobs at its Manchester head office as it joins the ranks of retailers slashing jobs this year.

The latest round of redundancies at the fashion retailer was communicated to affected staff members during a video call last week.

The move follows a previous announcement in December, when Boohoo Group said it was planning job cuts impacting approximately 200 roles across its brands, including Boohoo and PLT.

A spokesperson for the group told the title: “As a business, Boohoo Group remains focused on ensuring that it is well-placed to potentialise the significant opportunities ahead, while maintaining a control on costs.

“Following a review of business operations, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to propose some changes to the structure of some of our teams, which affects some roles. Affected colleagues are being informed and we are supporting them at this time.”

Currys

Currys supplied

Currys is one of the retailers using automation in its approach to offsetting the £32m set to be added to its tax bill in April.

The retailer, which has been making incremental changes across its store estate in the last 12 months, has introduced electronic shelf edge labelling to around 100 of its stores in the UK.

Chief executive Alex Baldock said the move “saves colleagues a much disliked job and improves the cost efficiency”.

Baldock warned the fallout from the Budget would also lead to “inevitable” price rises, but that it was a “last resort” for the business.

He also hinted that the electricals giant may increase its offshoring of some of its functions and boost its workforce in India, which consists of “the best part of 1000 colleagues”.

Next

NextNext will begin trialling self-service machines across selected stores in the coming months as it looks to offset the £67m increase to its tax bill.

The high street giant is introducing its first set of machines in February and March, with an eye to roll it out across the estate later on in the year.

The business is also looking at several other “small improvements and operating efficiencies”, including launching an automated returns process for online returns so customers would no longer need to take their orders to the till.

The retailer’s chief executive Lord Wolfson told Retail Gazette earlier this month that the business is “not expecting” to make any redundancies and will “take on less new people rather than lose existing people”.

Next, which raised its full-year profit guidance at the start of the month following a better-than-expected golden quarter, is also planning to mitigate £13m of wage costs through raising prices on like-for-like goods by 1%.

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