Some staff at the Broadstairs Asda store could be facing redundancy following a difficult financial year for the supermarket.
Full year results for 2016 filed at Companies House revealed a 19 per cent fall in pre-tax profits to £791.7 million and a 3.2 per cent drop in total sales to £21.7 billion.
The retailer has started a consultation period with 3,257 employees at 18 under-performing stores, including Broadstairs.
Another 59 stores will be reviewed to look at working hours of staff.
The situation in Broadstairs
The Westwood Road store has 305 members of staff. Thirty of those staff are now in consultation.
But, an Asda spokesman said redundancy was likely to affect less than 10% – so 3 or 4 people – if the current action stays inline with previous reviews.
The spokesman added: “In a worst case scenario it means potential redundancy for 3 or 4 roles.
“The way people are shopping is changing really rapidly. One of the big trends is that people still do a big shop but there are less of them. Many come in every other day and buy items for dinner, then there is e-commerce and people are using other shops as well. This is driving the need for different shift patterns and different jobs in our stores. In 18 of our stores we have identified that we just have too many colleagues, Broadstairs is one of those stores.
“Part of the consultation exercise is trying to find people alternative roles, maybe at other stores we have in the area.”
The consultation, which started Wednesday, is due to end early next month.