Safeway plans to terminate 940 administrative jobs to offset a sales slump spurred by more frugal shoppers and tighter competition, according to aHouston Chronicle newspaper report. These cuts represent 13% of the supermarket giant’s administrative work force of 7,000 employees nationwide.
None of the 165,000 workers in Safeway’s 1,694 North American stores will lose their jobs. The grocer paid $1.2 billion for Chicago IL-based Dominick’s in 1998, then purchased Houston TX-based Randall’s for $1.3 billion in 1999. Pink slips were given June 10 to 416 workers, according to Safeway spokesman Brian Dowling. Jobs of about 272 employees will be eliminated in the next year; the rest of the cuts will come by not filling 252 vacant positions.
Layoffs will occur at Safeway’s Pleasanton CA headquarters, as well as Los Angeles CA, Denver CO, Seattle WA, Phoenix AZ, Dallas TX, Houston, Walnut Creek CA, Portland OR, and Lanham MD.
