Inter Ikea Group, the company that owns the furniture retailer's brand and is responsible for range development, is implementing staff reductions. Of the company's total of 25,000 employees worldwide, approximately 850 people will be leaving their positions. Just over 600 employees are to leave the organization by summer, and another 250 will be affected after the summer.
In Sweden, around 300 jobs are disappearing. The cuts primarily affect operations in Malmö and Älmhult.
The change is happening against the backdrop of the company wanting to shorten its decision-making paths and reduce costs. During the last financial year, Inter Ikea Group's operating profit decreased from approximately SEK 25 billion to just under SEK 19 billion.
Despite many successes, Inter Ikea Group has become a little too complex and fragmented in a retail environment that requires simplicity and speed, says Henrik Elm, CFO at Inter Ikea Group, and continues:
We need to be faster, have shorter decision-making paths and less complexity. What is on the periphery receives less priority when we focus. As part of this, a number of employees are affected.
Inter Ikea states that the goal is to have the new organization in place before the end of the calendar year.
The announcement is the latest in a series of changes within the Ikea sphere recently. In March, Ingka Group, which operates the majority of the warehouses, announced that 625 jobs in Sweden are affected by a reorganization focusing on e-commerce, logistics and automation. Two weeks ago, it was also announced that the warehouse in Borlänge is closing and being replaced by a smaller store, as an adaptation to the fact that e-commerce today accounts for over 20 percent of the company's sales.