After asking employees to work fewer hours, a fresh round of job cuts has been announced by the struggling owner of a Fife shop.
Pret A Manger, which has an outlet in Market Street in St Andrews, has seen a drastic decline in trade as more people work from home.
Last month it announced plans to close 30 branches – including shops in Edinburgh and Glasgow – and reduce its workforce by 1,000 staff.
Earlier this month, the firm asked its staff to work fewer hours to save jobs.
Now the sandwich shop chain said it would increase the number of job cuts to 2,800 staff out of its workforce of around 8,000. The majority of the job losses affect store staff, although 90 are from head office.
Pret said that although there have been “clear signs of recovery” in footfall since the lockdown was eased, trade across its shops is still around 60% down year-on-year.
The reduction in staff numbers has been driven by “shorter opening hours, lower transaction levels, and the losses faced by the business in 2020”, it said.
Around 1,000 other roles at the business have been preserved after staff members agreed to move to a lower level of minimum weekly hours.
These hours will be continuously reviewed to reflect footfall and sales levels during the rest of 2020 and early 2021, it said.
Chief executive officer Pano Christou said: “I’m gutted that we’ve had to lose so many colleagues.
“Although we’re now starting to see a steady but slow recovery, the pandemic has taken away almost a decade of growth at Pret.
“We’ve managed to protect many jobs by making changes to the way we run our shops and the hours we ask team members to work.
“I’m hopeful we’ll be able to review all these changes now that trade is improving again, and I’m encouraged by the improvements we’re seeing every week.
“We’ll soon be announcing a number of big changes to help bring Pret to more people.
“We’re grateful to the Government for the support they’ve given our sector, and hope that support will continue as long as possible to give Pret time to adjust.”
