Burberry to axe jobs following slide in annual profit

By The Newsroom
Published 18th May 2016, 16:08 BST
Updated 18th May 2016, 17:11 BST
Luxury brand Burberry,famous for itsYorkshire-made trench coats,is toaxe jobs and cut its product range by up to 20 per cent following a 10 per cent slide in annual profit.Luxury brand Burberry,famous for itsYorkshire-made trench coats,is toaxe jobs and cut its product range by up to 20 per cent following a 10 per cent slide in annual profit.
Luxury brand Burberry,famous for itsYorkshire-made trench coats,is toaxe jobs and cut its product range by up to 20 per cent following a 10 per cent slide in annual profit.
L'‹uxury brand Burberry, famous for its '‹Yorkshire-made '‹trench coats, '‹is to axe jobs and cut its product range by up to 20 per cent following a 10 per cent slide in annual profit.

The group hopes to make cost savings of £100m by overhauling its operations as it struggles to cope with a reduction in the number of Chinese tourists visiting its stores in Europe and weak demand in Hong Kong.

Burberry's finance director Carol Fairweather said the cuts will result in a reduction in the group's headcount, but said there were no plans to announce how many jobs will be lost for the time being.'‹

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"We will communicate with the teams first," she said, adding that no decision has been made on whether the job cuts will be at head office or in stores.

It is unlikely that the skilled workers who stitch 5,000 heritage trench coats a week at Burberry's factory in Castleford will be affected as their jobs are vital to Burberry's success. Their stitching skills take a year to hone and Burberry is hoping to persuade its 800 workers in Castleford and Keighley, where

the gabardine fabric is woven, to move to a new state-of-the-art manufacturing and weaving facility in Leeds.

Burberry is spending over '‹Â£50m '‹on the new facility, situated on the South Bank of Leeds, which will employ more than 1,000 people when it is completed in 2019.