Johannesburg – Retail giant Edcon will reportedly be retrenching approximately 22,000 of its workers after serving them with retrenchment notices last Thursday amid its business rescue process.
These reports come after the retail company, which operates Edgars, Jet and CNA, and runs the Thank U programme, placed itself under business rescue due to a massive R2-billion economic fallout from the Covid-19 lockdown.
It is reported that business rescue practitioners (BRPs) had issued notices to the employees in order to avoid the company being liquidated.
According to an employee at Edgars, who worked at the retailer for 10 years, the company had shifted its main focus of selling clothes to its financial services which brought in “easy millions of brands”.
“I believe that Edcon’s sales were affected by the fact that the company had lost focus on its core business, which is selling clothes and in the process, many of our stores found itself with shortages of stock,” the unnamed employee said.
The notices dated June 10, were addressed to all employees and labour union SA Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu) and revealed that the company’s 2019 restructuring plan was on track until the end of December 2019.
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