17th Aug 2026 18:13
(Alliance News) - Morrisons shed almost 5,000 jobs last year as part of efforts by the private equity-backed grocer to shore up its finances.
The Bradford-based retailer also revealed that its total debt levels rose further despite cost-cutting across the business.
Morrisons revealed that its average monthly workforce fell from 101,144 people to 96,232 for the year to October last year, according to accounts published on Companies House.
It means staffing levels fell by 4,912 at the UK's sixth-largest supermarket group.
The accounts showed this included more than 4,200 store jobs, while food manufacturing and distribution roles were also hit.
A Morrisons spokesman said: "Colleague numbers in the year ending October 2025 primarily reflect the impact of the closure of the newspaper home delivery service in convenience, the restructuring of the retail people team and the downsizing of the Rathbones bakery business.
"There was no additional redundancy programme in stores, where numbers were only reduced by not replacing those who had chosen to leave."
The retailer is in the process of a major turnaround programme under boss Rami Baitieh to reverse its fortunes after losing market share to rivals.
German discounters Aldi and Lidl have overtaken Morrisons in their share of the grocery market in recent years.
Revenues were higher over the year, up 2.8% at GBP15.7 billion, despite disruption from a cyber incident that caused an IT systems outage just before Christmas 2024, impacting product availability.
The group – owned by US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice – also revealed that its reported net debt increased to GBP7.52 billion for the year, from GBP7.07 billion a year earlier.
It said the figure included lease liabilities and preference shares, with net debt of GBP3.2 billion excluding these.
Morrisons also fell to an GBP629 million annual pre-tax loss, before exceptional items.
The company stressed that underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation remained at GBP835 million for the year despite cost increases linked to the previous autumn budget.
The spokesman added: "In our 2025 full year we grew like-for-like sales every quarter, maintained Ebitda and our market share, and demonstrated our resilience in the face of some tough external headwinds, from the cyber incident, rising inflation and government cost increases, which we worked hard to offset."
By Henry Saker-Clark, Press Association Deputy Business Editor
Press Association: Finance
source: PA
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