British retailer Marks & Spencer is to cut 351 jobs at stores across the country, seeking to make savings in a brutally competitive market.
The job losses, first reported by The Guardian, will be mainly in various store management roles and are unrelated to M&S's programme to close 100 UK stores by 2022, which has already cost some jobs.
"M&S is transforming, and this is a tough but necessary decision to take, to ensure our stores support the future of the business and provide the best service for our customers," said a spokeswoman for the retailer.
Continuing Decline
M&S has reported two straight years of profit decline, and analysts forecast a third when it reports its 2018-19 results next May.
In May, the retailer said that it was modernising rapidly to survive – a theme to which chairman Archie Norman returned at last week's annual shareholders' meeting, when he said that M&S "has a burning platform".
In 2016, M&S cut a net 525 jobs from its London head office.
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