Joules which is now majority owned by Next is to make an undisclosed number of redundances which will affect employees in Market Harborough where the business has its HQ.
In a statement, the business said: “We have announced an accelerated and extended transition of many of Joules’ internal services to Next. This means that many of the Joules support functions will transition to Next at the end of October 2023.
“Whilst we are unfortunately making some redundances, we have a very strong partnership with our friends at Next, not far away in Enderby and we’ll be exploring job opportunities there for our impacted colleagues. We hope to mitigate as many redundancies as possible in this way.”
Meanwhile, in a statement to the Stock Exchange, Next said that it was speeding up its plans to integrate Joules onto its Total Platform, which is already providing it with website, warehousing, distribution, contact centre, online advertising and retail services. Other functions such as imports and freight, finance, payments, accounting, HR and budgeting will be brought forward to October.
This will bring considerable savings to the Joules company which remains separate with its own board and management under the leadership of Tom Joule who retains 26 per cent of the equity. The Market Harborough team will be focusing wholly on product, marketing and brand development spanning product design, buying, garment tech, merchandising, photography, social media and PR, branding, website content and creative, together with wholesale and third-party sales.
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