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More redundancies at Alan Nuttall Partnership with 200 jobs set to go

More than 200 jobs at one of the Black Country’s biggest firms are to be axed as the business battles the rise in online shopping.

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The Alan Nuttall Partnership in Hall Street, Dudley

Shop fittings specialists The Alan Nuttall Partnership view the move – the second round of redundancies it has made in four months – as necessary to secure the firm’s future.

Chairman Alan Nuttall said he was ‘devastated’ at taking the action, which was aimed at refocusing on the profitable parts of the business.

The redundancies will be spread across the company’s two sites – at Hall Street, Dudley, and Hinckley in Leicestershire.

The company employs more than 500 people. Employees were told in personal emails and letters on Friday.

This letter was sent to staff from Alan Nuttall

One Dudley worker who asked not to be named said: “Some people have spent all their lives at the company after starting there as apprentices.

"It’s heartbreaking. Nuttalls was such a big employer. I don’t think people understand the implications of this.”

The company produces interiors and display units, from design through to manufacture and installation, for clients such as M&S, Morrisons, Asda, Homebase, Costa, Nike, Sainsbury’s and Dunkin Donuts.

In his letter, the chairman said the business as a whole had made ‘considerable losses’ over the past two years which it could not continue to sustain.

It comes after the company axed 84 jobs earlier this year.

Managing director Nino Calandra said: “We have invested time and resource to try and move into new sectors to reduce our dependence on the retail sector but sadly this doesn’t happen overnight, although we hope we will see the benefits of these actions in the near future.”

He described the growth of online shopping as seemingly ‘virtually unstoppable’.

Mr Calandra added: “Sadly we have no option. We need to do this to live to fight another day.”