EMPLOYEES at an Asda store in Bolton fear their jobs are on the chopping boards as the supermarket looks to make redundancies or dramatically reduce working hours of staff.

A woeful financial year has prompted the UK’s third-biggest grocery retailer to look at cutting costs and a three-week consultation period with 3257 employees across the country has commenced.

The Burnden Park branch is amongst 18 under-performing stores targeted.

The eventual number of job losses is expected to be in the hundreds nationwide, although no definite figures have been released. No store closures are being planned.

Workers union GMB has said it has been contacted by Asda staff who were ‘fearing for their jobs’ after store managers were given new business plans that includes major reductions in working hours.

An Asda spokesman said:: "We are currently in discussions with a number of our stores about changes that are needed to the number of hours required to run that store for our customers.

"It is common practice for a supermarket to need to make changes to hours based on the changing shopping habits of customers, and as ever we'll work with our colleagues to try and find the right way to ensure we have the right people, in the right place at the right time for our customers.

"We understand that any conversations about change are unsettling but it is always our upmost priority to find alternative roles or working patterns for impacted colleagues."

The Asda in Radcliffe is also being targeted for cuts.

The news comes after Asda laid bare a disastrous 2016, with full year results filed at Companies House revealing a 19 per cent crash in pre-tax profits to £791.7 million and a 3.2 per cent drop in total sales to £21.7 billion.