The Warehouse staff called to meetings amid redundancy rumours

Friday, 16 April 2021

Staff at The Warehouse have been called to meetings next week amid rumours of further redundancies at the retail giant.

Stuff understands the company will present a proposal to close jewellery counters at its stores.

On Friday, a spokeswoman for The Warehouse said meetings would be held on Tuesday and staff had not yet received any proposal.

First Union retail organiser Ben Peterson said the union heard from The Warehouse about a proposal on Friday afternoon.

The Warehouse staff have been called to meetings on Tuesday.

* The Warehouse workers rally for one final push against restructure plans

* The Warehouse presents revised restructuring plan to staff, expected to cost up to 750 jobs

While details were still unclear, the union would represent all affected staff, he said.

“It's a very profitable company, so we can’t see any reason for redundancies.”

Last month The Warehouse Group, which includes The Warehouse, Noel Leeming, Warehouse Stationery and Torpedo7, reported a record first-half profit of $55 million, up from $29.2m on the year before.

The profit included the repayment of its $67.6m Government wage subsidy in December and an $11.3m charge for restructuring.

The Warehouse was among retailers which had benefited from a bounce back in trading as consumers spent up following the alert level 4 lockdown.

The pandemic came at a time when the company was on the cusp of major restructuring, which resulted in some stores closing, hundreds of jobs lost and changes to rosters which it said were necessary to respond to shifts in shopping behaviour.