U.K.’s Asda to Cut 1,400 Jobs

Leeds, England, The Wal-Mart-owned British supermarket group Asda today said it plans to cut 200 management jobs and up to 1,200 managerial store positions in a bid to challenge its rival, Tesco PLC. Asda has been engaged in a price war with Britian’s No. 1 chain Tesco for the past year, and the job cuts are part of a restructuring of its executive lineup and headquarters. Asda also brought back two directors from other posts. The supermarket group said the managerial changes would allow the company to better invest in frontline customer service. As Britian’s No. 2 supermarket chain, Asda employs 140,000 people across the country, so the planned cuts could affect up to 1% of the work force. The company said it hopes to reassign 400 of the 1,200 stores positions to other posts.

CEO Andy Bond, who took the reins earlier this year, said, “I’m simply not satisfied with this year’s average performance—our natural home is out-performance and today’s changes put in place the teams that will re-ignite our business over the next 12 to 18 months.”