Jobs safe for M&S staff in Ireland

MARKS and Spencer (M&S) employees in Ireland have been assured their jobs are safe after the retail giant announced the closure of 27 stores and the loss of 1,230 jobs across the group.

The 18 M&S stores in the republic will remain open and all 2,800 Irish jobs are safe, a spokeswoman said.

M&S yesterday reported a smaller drop in sales than analysts expected. Sales were boosted by the strong performance of its international operations which include Ireland. International sales were up almost 27%&. On a group level, M&S said revenue at outlets open at least a year fell 7.1% in the third quarter.

The job cuts, about 1.6% of Marks’ 75,000 workforce, will come from store closures and eliminating head office posts.

The results from Marks follows better than expected holiday figures from Next and Debenhams. The retailer began offering discounts more than a month before Christmas to attract shoppers, leading it to forecast a 1.75 percentage point decline in full-year gross margins.

Sanford C Bernstein analyst Luca Solca said: “This performance should go some way to dispel some of the doomsday scenarios on the UK general retail sector that the market had conjured up in the run-up to Christmas.”

Marks said it aims to cut British operating costs by 1% to 2% in fiscal 2010, a reduction of £175 million (€193m) to £200m.

About 780 of the job cuts will result from store closings, which include 25 of the company’s Simply Food outlets. Marks also said it will eliminate as many as 450 positions at its head office and will make changes to its final salary pension plan by capping workers’ annual increases in pensionable pay.