Tesco reveals 9,000 jobs set to be hit in major restructuring amid ‘challenging’ market

Tesco has revealed plans to axe up to 9,000 jobs as part of a cost-cutting move that will involve the grocer trimming its head office and closing tens of fresh food counters.

Britain's largest retailer said today that 90 counters will be closed and 9,000 jobs will be impacted by the latest twist in Dave Lewis’s turnaround plan for the retailer, amid what it warned was a “challenging” market.

Tesco said that it hoped to redeploy up to 50 per cent of the staff affected into other customer service roles.

In a statement this afternoon Tesco said: “Overall, we estimate that up to 9,000 Tesco colleague roles could be impacted, however, our expectation is that up to half of these colleagues could be redeployed to other customer-facing roles. We are working with our third party providers to understand the impact on their staff in our colleague hot food service.”

The grocer added: "Media speculation over the weekend was premature and we have accelerated our communications to colleagues in order to reduce the significant uncertainty created by incorrect information. We will be doing all we can to help colleagues affected by these changes, including offering redeployment opportunities wherever possible."

Read more: Tesco 'to axe jobs'

Chief executive Jason Tarry said: "In our four years of turnaround we’ve made good progress, but the market is challenging and we need to continually adapt to remain competitive and respond to how customers want to shop. We’re making changes to our UK stores and head office to simplify what we do and how we do it, so we’re better able to meet the needs of our customers. This will impact some of our colleagues and our commitment is to minimise this as much as possible and support our colleagues throughout."

The announcement comes after reports emerged over the weekend that the grocer was set to axe 15,000 jobs and radically overhaul some of its store operations as part of a £1.5bn cost-cutting plan.

Reports in the Mail on Sunday said that thousands of employees in Tesco’s meat, fish and delicatessen counters face the firing line as a result of plans to reshape parts of the business.