Union leaders expressed dismay today at news of almost 100 job losses in mobile phone shops.
Prospect said highly-skilled sales staff will be out of work at an "extremely difficult" time in the high street because of the move by Everything Everywhere, the company formed by the merger of T-Mobile and Orange.
Union official Ben Bellamy said: "We are disappointed that voluntary redundancies were not considered. This will cause great uncertainty and worry for those members affected.
"We welcome the commitment from the employer to redeploy staff where possible and their encouragement for affected staff to move to non-retail roles, bringing their frontline skills into back-office roles.
"However, it may not be possible to do this for those working at remote locations who cannot get to an alternative office."
An Everything Everywhere spokesman said: "Everything Everywhere currently has over 750 stores and employs more than 5,000 people in its retail team.
"This week, we have proposed to staff that we will be consolidating a small number of our Orange and T-Mobile stores in locations where it makes sense to do so. These proposals would see the consolidation of Orange and T-Mobile sites into single Everything Everywhere stores in 31 towns.
"These proposals would have an impact on store manager roles within these stores, but not frontline sales staff. If we move forward with these proposals it would mean a reduction of 27 store manager roles and one assistant store manager role across our retail estate. We will be looking to redeploy any individuals affected by these changes wherever possible.
"We have also announced proposed organisational changes for our HQ retail department to deliver a new phase in retail which will focus on accelerating the company's objectives of delivering the best network and service. As a result of the proposed new structure, regrettably, 67 retail head office roles are impacted.
"The new structure will help retail become more agile, efficient and ensure that, as a business, we are even closer to our customers' needs. As part of the restructure we are also creating more than 50 new roles and we are hopeful that some of the individuals at risk will re-apply within the business."
PA
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