Tesco is axing 1,700 deputy managers in its smallest stores as ruthless CEO continues cutbacks
The staff face redundancy or pay cuts of up to £10,000 a year.
TESCO is axing 1,700 deputy managers in its smallest stores as Drastic Dave strikes again.
The staff face redundancy or pay cuts of up to £10,000 a year.
The biggest supermarket chain is cutting the roles in Express shops, ahead of its £3.7billion takeover of wholesaler Booker.
Chief executive Dave Lewis, who took over in 2014 amid falling sales, has since helped the chain revive its fortunes.
But the former Unilever boss has earned the nickname Drastic Dave during his career for his ruthless cost-cutting. A source said of the cuts: “This is a disgrace, a sickening blow.
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“These are the workers who have helped Dave Lewis turn Tesco around.
“This will hurt customers too because the service will be worse.” Tesco will replace deputies with lower-paid “shift leaders”.
Affected staff will be able to re-apply for the new positions, take a payout or in rare cases take a deputy manager level role elsewhere in the business.
Last month Tesco said it was making 1,000 redundant in a distribution network shake-up.
Its merger with Booker, which owns the Budgens and Londis brands, was also announced in January.
A Tesco spokesman said: “To help improve our service to customers in our Express stores we are aiming to have more of our colleagues on the shop floor, more often.
"To help achieve this we are creating more than 3,300 shift leader roles which, in turn, means we will no longer have deputy managers.
"We appreciate that these changes will impact our deputy manager colleagues, and will do everything we can to support them throughout this period.”