Hundreds of jobs could be at risk at the supermarket chain's head office in Leeds on the back of poor performance over the Christmas period.
While the Walmart-owned supermarket chain is yet to announce its results for the Christmas season, analysts believe it could report a fall of as much as 3.5% in like-for-like (LFL) sales for the period, at a time when its main rivals, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Morrisons, reported better-than-expected results.

This follows a November update, which revealed a 4.5% decline in LFL sales for the 13 weeks to September 30.

The latest job cuts, which Asda says will be "in the low hundreds", are on top of the 1,360 middle-management jobs that were axed in stores in 2014, as the grocer tried to reduce costs by £1bn. Asda's head office in Leeds employs around 3,000 people. They were briefed of the redudancies on Monday.

A spokesperson for Asda said: "It's well documented that in recent years, customers have radically changed the way they shop. We were the first of the big four to recognise this and launch a new strategy in 2013, yet the external pressures have accelerated at an increasingly rapid rate over the last 18 months.

"As a result, the industry faces major challenges and the certainty of permanent structural change. In the context of this, we also have to further change the way we do business.

"Today, we have started to talk to our colleagues in head office functions about what this means for them. We have made some difficult but necessary decisions but we must discuss these with our colleagues before we talk publicly."