Staff at Tesco stores in Aberystwyth and Cardigan are facing an anxious wait to learn if their jobs will be affected after the supermarket chain launched a reorganisation.

In a statement the company admitted that 9,000 staff members could be affected by changes.

But they said it was hoped that up to half of those staff would be able to take on other roles.

Part of the changes could see around 90 stores see the loss of their fresh food counters, while there have been suggestions that store bakeries could also close in some stores.

That will go alongside other changes including changes to stock control and staffing changes at the company’s head office.

A Tesco spokesperson said: “Overall, we estimate that up to 9,000 Tesco colleague roles could be impacted, however, our expectation is that up to half of these colleagues could be redeployed to other customer-facing roles.

“We will be doing all we can to help colleagues affected by these changes, including offering redeployment opportunities wherever possible.”

The changes to counters come with the company claiming that fewer people are using the facilities.

The spokesperson said: “Not only are customers shopping in different ways, but we know that they have less time available to shop too - which means they are using our counters less frequently.

“We will be making changes to the counters in our large stores to ensure that we have the right offer for customers.

“We expect that around 90 stores will close their counters, with the remaining 700 trading with either a full or flexible counter offer for our customers.”

See this week’s south papers for the full story, available in shops and as a digital edition on Wednesday