John Lewis Partnership will return to a profit this year, departing boss Sharon White told employees.
Since the pandemic, the retailer has struggled to achieve profitability and has therefore been undergoing a transformation plan to reignite growth.
As part of these plans, the Waitrose owner is considering cutting up to 11,000 jobs over the next five years as part of an overarching target of slashing costs by £900 million.
Earlier this week, it was revealed the group was cutting its redundancy package for staff by half.
Sharon White, who is leaving as chairwoman at the end of the year, told workers to prep for “quite big changes and quite bold changes”.
“There’s been an awful lot of change over the past year. But those efforts are starting to show themselves in our commercial performance, we are converting more of our sales into return to partners, and we will more than break even this year, which is a great start as we build back to sustainable profit for the business,” she said in a video message.
Both White and Nish Kankiwala, the retailer’s chief executive, said that job cuts would be a last resort, pointing out the 30,000 departing workers they are already having to replace.
John Lewis has failed to post a pre-tax profit since 2019 and in September the retailer was forced to extend its turnaround plan for another two years after suffering full-year losses of £234 million.
Annual results for John Lewis are expected on 14 March.