One in four workers quitting Sports Direct

SPORTS Direct’s notoriously overworked staff are voting with their feet and leaving the company.

The beleaguered retail giant had to replace 22pc of UK employees in the year to April 24 – a turnover rate of nearly one in four. It is nearly three times the average churn at British businesses.

And the figure was 3.3 percentage points higher than the previous 12 months.

Analysts warned such high turnover was deeply concerning and piled pressure on billionaire boss Mike Ashley, who earlier this year was forced to explain work practices at his warehouses to MPs.

Parliament’s influential business committee accused him of running the firm’s warehouse in Derbyshire, like a ‘Victorian workhouse’. Members attacked the ‘six strikes and you’re out’ policy, where workers faced the sack for getting six black marks over a six-month period.

And they said there was no convincing reason for Sports Direct to keep more than 3,000 warehouse staff on short-term, temporary contracts other than to cut costs and pass the buck.

Retail analyst Bryan Roberts, of TCC Global, said the staff turnover figures were ‘incredibly worrying’.

There are also concerns about Sports Direct’s struggle to find a new chief financial officer to replace Bob Mellors, who retired in 2013.