Reports confirm that Tesco, the U.K. supermarket giant, has recently announced that around 4,500 jobs at 153 Tesco Metro stores are about to be lost as part of the firm’s recent round of redundancies. Apparently, the largest grocer in the UK stated that it is changing the way the stores operated for serving customers better and to run the business more sustainably.

The company stated that the stores were now operating in a progressively competitive and challenging retail environment. 

Sources familiar to the matter informed that the company had originally designed the Metro format for larger and weekly shopping purposes, but now around 70% of customers used them as buying food for the day, or as a typical convenience store.

Seemingly, the company, which employs nearly 340,000 people in Republic of Ireland and the UK has mentioned that changes to the store would include simpler and faster ways of filling shelves, more flexibility across the store to enhance customer service along with a leaner management structure.

For the record, Tesco Metro shops are sized between Tesco Express shops and Tesco superstores and they first started in 1994. The company is making some modifications in 134 of its 1,750 Express stores, where customer presence is lower.

Reportedly, modifications in those stores will include a minor reduction in opening hours during the time of quieter trading periods, at the beginning and end of the day, as well as simplifying the stock routines.

According to prominent reports, Tesco is between the midst of trying to save around £1.5bn as the competition between supermarkets escalate. The latest move comes as German budget rivals Lidl and Aldi continue to place pressure on the big four U.K. supermarkets.

Tesco had announced in January that it would shut down its food counters in 90 of its stores as part of a broader cost-cutting plan that would severely affect 9,000 staff.

Source Credits: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49239916