MORE THAN 250 job losses were announced yesterday, with a warning of further redundancies linked to a drop in Irish retail sales.
Drinks company Britvic Ireland said it planned to cut 100 jobs from next month.
The company, whose brands include Ballygowan, 7Up, Mi Wadi and Club mixers, employs 730 people in Ireland.
Staff were informed of the job losses, which will be predominantly in the areas of sales and merchandising, at a series of briefings held yesterday. A small number in HR, IT, supply chain and finance will also be affected.
A spokeswoman for the company said that 12 of the job losses would be at the company’s Belfast and Omagh operations, with the remaining 88 to come from the company’s facilities at Nangor Road and Kylemore Park West in Dublin; Newcastle West in Co Limerick and Cork.
Staff at the company’s new customer call centre opened in Thurles last month will not be affected.
She said that “challenges in the convenience and pub sector” meant the company had to “restructure its sales and merchandising teams in order to succeed in a dramatically altered soft drinks market”.
More than 100 jobs in Superquinn’s store in Naas, Co Kildare, are to go after the lease expired and the landlord demanded possession, whilehairdressing group Toni Guy said yesterday it was closing four of its salons, with the loss of 35 jobs.
The company’s salons in Cork, Kilkenny, Dame Street and Essensuals on South William Street in Dublin had been put into voluntary liquidation as part of a restructuring plan to secure the future of the business.
The company had operated a total of 13 salons employing 250 staff, many on a franchise basis.
The company said overheads and in particular high rents and salaries, combined with the current economic climate were the primary factors in its decision.It said customers who had vouchers could use them across the remaining nine salons.
Music and books retailer HMV also yesterday announced a raft of cost-cutting measures – including store closures and redundancies – as it battles with tumbling sales.
The group, which owns the Waterstone’s book chains, will close 60 stores over the next 12 months after it reported a 13.6 per cent slump in HMV’s sales in the UK and Ireland in the five weeks to January 1st and revealed it was struggling to meet the terms of a bank loan.
As well as the disruption caused by snow and ice before Christmas, HMV, which has 16 stores in the Republic and 11 in Northern Ireland, said its core entertainment markets remained weak and underlined the urgency with which it needed to carry out its turnaround strategy, which focuses on broadening the product mix.
A spokesman for the group’s Irish operations said the “vast majority” of HMV stores around the country would not be affected.
Also yesterday, Kerry Airport said it planned to cut its workforce by almost a third, blaming the decision on a drop-off in passenger numbers and a decision by Ryanair to reduce the number of daily flights to and from Dublin.
The airport is seeking 20 voluntary redundancies from a staff of 65, due to become effective from February 4th.