J Sainsbury plans marketing cull

J Sainsbury is understood to be planning to axe more than 25 marketers from its supermarket’s marketing department as part of a job cull at head office.

The supermarket group is expected to cut about a quarter of the jobs in its marketing department, which is understood to number more than 100 people.

The cuts would be in line with reports that Sainsbury’s is planning to cut a quarter of its staff – about 650 jobs – at its new headquarters in Holborn, London. The head office employs about 2,600 people.

A Sainsbury’s spokeswoman claims the reports are “speculative” and refuses to confirm whether job losses will be made at head office and whether they will include marketers. She adds that the group is in the process of creating 10,000 jobs in its stores, the majority of which would be part-time, in a bid to cut queues.

News of the head office review comes less than two weeks after chief executive Sir Peter Davis unveiled trading figures for 2003 that disappointed the City. He pledged that &£200m of cost savings would be made in 2003. Like-for-like sales for Sainsbury’s in the UK for the 11 weeks to March 22, with one week estimated to March 29, were up 1.3 per cent against the same period last year.

Sainsbury’s is struggling to hang onto its position as the second-largest supermarket in the UK after Tesco.