A Tesco Ireland spokesperson has told Retail Intelligence that reports in yesterday's Irish Independent suggesting that job losses could be on the cards in Ireland are "purely speculative".
Details of a massive restructuring process at Tesco UK were revealed at the weekend, which could see the loss of some 10,000 jobs across the retailer's global operations, as well as store closures.
"The media reports about job losses today in Ireland are speculative and we have confirmed that we are not closing any stores," the spokesperson said.
"Over the last twelve months, we have made a number of changes to our business to ensure we have more colleagues on the shop floor during the busiest times of the day. As a result, we now have an extra 800 colleagues working in our stores during the day to provide better service to our customers."
The spokesperson added that Tesco did keep the structure of its Irish operation "under review", adding that this was an "ongoing process" and not allied to the recent appointment of Matt Davies as Tesco's UK & Ireland chief executive.
Last week, Clive Black of Shore Capital Stockbrokers said that the retailer may struggle to revisit its previous form here. "Long gone are the days when Tesco's margins in Ireland were high single digit per cent," he said.
"Alongside greater price competition has been the negative operational gearing that has accompanied several years now of materially falling like-for-like (LFL) sales for Tesco. As such, Tesco Ireland has mirrored the profit collapse of Central Europe and the UK, more latterly."
Last Friday, Tesco opened a new Tesco Express outlet on Dublin's Pearse Street, its 24th Tesco Express outlet in Dublin. The store is 260 square metres in size, and employs 16 people.
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Stephen Wynne-Jones
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