Lowe's Eliminates Thousands of Maintenance and Assembly Roles

A report in The Wall Street Journal reveals that Lowe's has outsourced thousands of store roles, affecting store maintenance and assembly staff.

Lowe's stores typically have several staff members responsible for janitorial services and product assembly, including barbecue grills and wheelbarrows, in each of its c.1,800 stores.

Third-party companies will be taking on the roles and those who are losing their jobs aren't being offered redundancy pay.  Lowe's is understood to be providing 'transition pay' which equates to around two weeks' wages for full-time workers.  Staff gaining new roles within the company are not entitled to the same hourly wages.

A Lowe's spokeswoman said: “We are moving to third-party assemblers and facility services to allow Lowe’s store associates to spend more time on the sales floor serving customers”.

The new Lowe's CEO - Marvin Ellison - was appointed last year and has already closed down the company's Orchard Supply Hardware chain, and shuttered nearly 50 low-performing stores in the US and Canada.  He has reshuffled the management team and given roles to former colleagues at The Home Depot where he worked for 12 years prior to being appointed CEO of the department store chain, JC Penney.

Lowe's recently announced its intention to hire over 65,000 staff in 2019 and has installed self-checkouts in stores to free up staff for other activities.

In May 2019, Lowe's reported a 3.5% rise in comparable Q1 sales, net earnings of $1.0 billion and diluted earnings per share of $1.31; compared to net earnings of $988 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.19 in the first quarter of 2018.  

Source : Insight DIY Team

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