Poundstretcher has cut its workforce by over 1,000 retail staff in the last year.
The discounter has approximately 3,640 working retail staff as of this month, down from 4,645 staff in the year to 31 March 2022. However, including its administrative staff, the average number of employees fell from 4,978 to 3,934 from 2022 – 2023, according to its latest full-year financial report.
The retailer’s sales fell by 16% during the year, from £325.3m to £273m, while pre-tax profit dropped from £88 million to £11.7 million.
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The retailer also closed 17 out of 371 stores, leaving its full estate at 354 stores across the UK.
In 2020, the retailer cut more than 100 stores as part of a company restructure.
The retailer said: “The national challenges around lorry driver shortages and global challenges around container shortages impacted our ability to maintain stock levels, which resulted in a number of stock shortages across the estate.”
The stock shortages led to some losses during the first half of 2022-23 and as a result “the company reduced the level of promotional activity and returned to a more normalised margin position”.
However, a strong performance in the third and fourth quarters helped the retailer to remain profitable for the year.
