STOCKHOLM — IKEA Group said on Wednesday, November 21, 2018, that it will eliminate 7,500 jobs over the next couple of years as it continues a major restructuring of its global business.
The cuts will mainly affect administrative staff in central support functions. At the same time, the company said it expects to add 11,500 new jobs over the same period as it opens new store formats, expands online services, grows its service offering and invests more heavily in digital capabilities.
IKEA Group, which owns 367 IKEA stores, said the changes are part of a broader transformation aimed at making the business more responsive in a retail market that is changing quickly. The company has been pushing further into delivery, digital services and more accessible store formats.
The expected redundancies amount to almost five percent of the company’s current workforce.
Chief Executive Jesper Brodin told Reuters: “We need to simplify the way we are organized. Over the last years... we have invested in resources in many different ways. And, to be honest, now we see that in several parts of our organization we have a bit of duplicate work,”
Brodin said the job losses would mainly hit central functions and global service offices, though some local service offices across markets would also be affected. He added: “This is not geared towards the store operation or distribution units”, he said in an interview.
The company did not say how many of the new roles would be in the same locations as the jobs being cut, but the announcement makes clear that IKEA is shifting resources away from back-office functions and toward customer-facing and digital operations.
The archive date for this report is November 21, 2018.
