Boots will cut around 700 non-pharmacy jobs to simplify its support operations, the health and beauty giant has announced.

The job losses would not affect pharmacy employees and would allow the multiple to invest in new technology such as its dispensing hub, Boots said yesterday (June 8).

The cuts would take place over the next two to three years and could affect staff involved in Boots’ HR, finance, marketing, trading and operations teams across the UK and Ireland, as well employees at its Nottingham head office, it said.

Boots told C+D it had not yet announced which teams would suffer from the cuts and a “formal consultation with affected colleagues” would begin “in due course”.

The job losses form part of parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance’s cost-restructuring programme, announced in April, which will see 200 US stores close by 2017 in a bid to save the company £1 billion. The company reassured staff last year that its buyout by US pharmacy giant Walgreens would not lead to job losses.

Boots said the upcoming round of job cuts would be achieved through “a combination of natural attrition, redeployment, retraining and redundancy”. It told C+D it could not confirm how much money it expected to save as a result of the cuts.
 

'Better service levels'

Simplifying the company’s support functions would provide a “better level of service” for stores and allow for “more focused investment in key areas” such as automatic repeat dispensing, electronic stock management and new appointment booking, it added.

Boots president Simon Roberts said yesterday that the company had “not taken these decisions lightly” and it “understood the impact that today’s announcement may have on our colleagues”.

The company was “fully committed” to supporting all employees as it transformed the business, he added.

Last year, Boots superintendent pharmacist Steve Banks told C+D that its dispensing hub would not result in any pharmacists being made redundant.

How could the job cuts affect Boots pharmacists?

We want to hear your views, but please express them in the spirit of a constructive, professional debate. For more information about what this means, please click here to see our community principles and information