Mothercare is eyeing the possibility of making up to 200 roles redundant in the UK amid a restructure, according to Drapers.
The maternity and early childhood retailer has reportedly started a consultation process with staff with the eventual aim of reducing costs from head office, sourcing, and national distribution centre.
A Mothercare spokesman told Drapers that this was in line with the retailer’s “next phase of business transformation”.
This includes an increased focus on its maternity, newborn, baby and toddler markets, and move away from non-core areas like clothing and toys for older children.
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“The objective here is to make the Mothercare business more specialist, more simple, more robust and more exportable to its international markets,” the spokesman said.
“Inevitably, for some teams and individuals, simplifying and focusing the business means that we will be stopping the activity that they currently undertake.
“The situation is being managed sensitively with all colleagues and we have formed an employee consultative forum consisting of elected representatives from across the business.
“We are consulting with this group on the proposals, to consider ways of reducing redundancies and mitigating the consequences.”
Mothercare’s turnaround process is in its third year.
The retailer confirmed that its restructure was separate to its current and ongoing store-reduction programme, which aims to solidify its physical stores estate with 80 to 100 fewer shops.
In its full year report published in March this year, Mothercare employed 5211 people around the world.
It also recorded a 6.3 per cent increase in total sales to £1.2 billion, while underlying profits increased one per cent to £19.7 million.
UK like-for-like sales also went up 1.1 per cent, losses in the country were reduced by 31 per cent to £35.2 million.
Mothercare is the latest retailer to restructure amid tough trading on the high street and changing customer expectations.
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