Dixons Carphone to get rid of 800 managers across UK stores

Dixons Carphone is getting rid of 800 managers in its stores as it continues to cut costs despite benefiting from a surge in demand for laptops, monitors, and games consoles during the lockdown.

The retailer is the latest big high street name to announce job losses as the economic upheaval created by the coronavirus pandemic takes it toll. The jobs blow adds to the 2,600 redundancies announced on Monday at the retail and gym chain DW Sports and tour operator Hays Travel.

Dixons said it was axing jobsto create a “leaner” management structure in its stores. The retailer will cut roles including retail manager, assistant manager and team leader and create more customer-facing jobs. The changes would result in an overall reduction of 800 roles, it said.

The restructuring is on top of the 2,900 jobs cut in April when Dixons closed the struggling Carphone Warehouse chain, which had 531 standalone stores. Instead of running dedicated mobile phone shops the company is selling handsets through “shop in shops” in 305 Currys PC World stores and online.

The poor performance of the company’s mobile arm, coupled with costs related to store closures in lockdown, saw the retailer’s headline pre-tax profits slump 50% to £166m in the year to 2 May.

Mark Allsop, the chief operating officer, said: “We want to … create a flatter management structure and make it easy for our customers to shop with us, however they choose,” he said.