Morrisons Cuts Nearly 5,000 Jobs Amidst Rising Debt
Supermarket chain reduces workforce by 4,912, with net debt climbing to £7.52 billion despite stable underlying earnings.
Image: Eddie Pollard / AI
Carla Rooney
Morrisons cut almost 5,000 jobs over the past year.
A Morrisons spokesman claimed no additional redundancy program existed in stores; numbers were only reduced by not replacing those who had chosen to leave.
The spokesman further claimed colleague numbers for the year ending October 2025 primarily reflect the closure of the newspaper home delivery service in convenience, the restructuring of the retail people team, and the downsizing of the Rathbones bakery business.
Annual revenue for the period grew by 2.8 percent, reaching £15.7 billion. Underlying earnings remained stable at £835 million.
In our 2025 full year we grew like-for-like sales every quarter, maintained Ebitda and our market share, and demonstrated our resilience in the face of some tough external headwinds, from the cyber incident, rising inflation and government cost increases, which we worked hard to offset.
This stability persisted despite significant cost pressures and an IT systems outage just before Christmas 2024, triggered by a cyber incident. Net debt, however, increased to £7.52 billion for the year, up from £7.07 billion a year earlier.
The supermarket chain reportedly posted an annual pre-tax loss of £629 million before exceptional items, with net debt rising to £7.52 billion.
A Morrisons spokesman stated, "In our 2025 full year we grew like-for-like sales every quarter, maintained Ebitda and our market share, and demonstrated our resilience in the face of some tough external headwinds, from the cyber incident, rising inflation and government cost increases, which we worked hard to offset."
Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation reportedly remained at £835 million for the year despite cost increases linked to the previous autumn budget.