Massmart says 1,800 Game stores employees might lose their jobs

1,800 Game stores employees might be set to lose their jobs after Walmart-owned company Massmart Holdings announced that it began a consultation process that could result in major job cuts.

Massmart, which owns stores including Game, Makro, Builders Warehouse, DionWired, Jumbo and Liquorland, said that it recently completed an assessment of how it could improve the efficiency of its Game stores.

In June, the group said the Covid-19 pandemic had hit them hard as it had disrupted trading. It was reported that total sales for the 23 weeks, which ended on 7 June 2020, fell 10.3% with a year on year basis.

READ MORE: Massmart set to close 34 stores, shed 1,440 jobs

“Massmart advises shareholders that the group has commenced, with respect to its Game stores in South Africa, a consultation process in terms of section 189 and section 189A of the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995,” the company in a statement

This particular section of the Labour Relations Act relates to retrenchments, which forms the core of discussions with organised labour and other relevant stakeholders.

“This process may potentially affect 1,800 employees in our Game stores in South Africa,” Massmart added.

The Walmart-owned company further said that its shareholders would be advised of the outcome of the consultation process.

Massmart has been in trouble for some time following its announcement in March 2020, that it would close 34 DionWired and Masscash stores, which reportedly led to the loss of up to 1,440 jobs in the process.

According to the company, a “store optimisation project that highlighted a number of underperforming stores” was the reason for the potential closures.

ALSO READ: Dion Wired’s 50-year business comes to an end today

Massmart said in February 2019 its headline earnings fell 31.7% to R901.2 million in the 52 weeks to 30 December 2019.

It added that the combination of low sales growth and higher expense growth caused group trading profit excluding foreign exchange movements, interest, and restructuring costs to decline by 16.8% to R2.1 billion.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.