High street retailer Boots is to cut 2,250 jobs as it overhauls its supply chain operation.
New proposals will see the creation of a centralised automated warehouse in Nottingham, which will replace 17 existing regional warehouses. The process will take three years to complete and will cost £70m.
The company said that the three-year period of implementation meant there was a good opportunity to minimise redundancies through natural wastage.
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In addition, Boots will work with its employees to minimise the impact of the modernisation programme and will try to re-deploy, relocate and re-skill staff to limit the number of redundancies.
The changes to the supply chain combined with a new IT system will remove about £60m of structural annual operating costs by 2010-11, the company estimates.