600 Warehouse workers reportedly losing jobs

Tuesday, 13 October 2020

Several Warehouse and Noel Leeming stores are being closed or replaced as the Warehouse thins its store staff as part of a restructure.

Warehouse staff are starting to get news on redundancies after a company-wide consultation but First Union believes many of them will have to be hired back for Christmas.

First Union retail organiser Tali Williams said she was notified last week that 300 full time roles equivalent roles of unionised members had been axed.

And based on the percentage of union membership throughout the stores, she believed up to 600 redundancies at The Warehouse could have been finalised, on top of earlier cutbacks at head office.

She said it was a very sad environment at the stores as staff watched long-time colleagues go.

‘’What we’re hearing now is really sad stories of people saying goodbye for the last time, clocking in after 20-30 years service, absolutely loyal to The Warehouse, their workmates are their family.’’

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The Warehouse Group is proposing six store closures on top of three already confirmed, which could result in 1080 job losses.

She said the company was heavily reducing hours on the shop floor and there were risks to customer service.

‘’Christmas is not far off, and what the company’s going to find is that they’ve made too many cuts and they're not going to have enough staff on. They’re going to have to bring some of these people back.’’

The Warehouse Group has been flagging job cuts since June as it conducts a major restructuring including store closures.

Consultations with staff have been underway since, and the group originally estimated that it could result in up to 1080 job losses.

The Warehouse says the restructure is necessary as part of a move to ‘’agile’’ working.

Its most recent estimate was that around 500 to 750 team members, including part-timers and casuals, could be affected – 320 full-time equivalent roles. That was on top of 100 to 130 likely job cuts at its Auckland head office.

Group chief executive Nick Grayston told the NZX in June that the company was moving to an agile business model.

‘’Covid-19 has also accelerated plans to realign some of our store operations closer to the needs of our customers and rationalise the distribution of some of our stores.’’

A Warehouse Group spokesperson said it would have a firmer picture on redundancies after staff meetings concluded across its 92 Warehouse stores this week.

Williams said many of the redundancies had been voluntary.

‘’It’s not a situation that some people want to be without work but certainly the idea of going through this whole process, into the unknown, with drastically reduced hours was just too much.’’

The group, which expects to review store leases for about one quarter of its network over the next year, braced for criticism last week after announcing a profit of $44.5 million.

It took $67.7m in Government wage subsidies and has said it would have made a $4.3m loss without them.

The restructure has involved pegging five stores for closure, and turning the Dunedin central store into a ‘’dark’’ or non-public online store.

The company also opened two new The Warehouse and Noel Leeming stores in Auckland and one new Noel Leeming in Christchurch to replace its Papanui and The Palms stores. Any Noel Leeming workers had been redeployed, the company said.