High street cull sweeps away 50,000 retail jobs

A colossal 50,000 jobs were axed in the first half of the year as retail workers bore the brunt of hundreds of store closures.

In the past few weeks alone, House of Fraser has put more than 6,000 jobs at risk with a radical store closure plan, while Poundworld has plunged into administration, endangering a further 5,100 positions.

It adds to the Toys R Us and Maplin retailers, which collapsed earlier this year, while the likes of Prezzo, Byron and Jamie’s Italian have shut restaurants and culled hundreds of jobs.

Retailers have been hammered by Brexitfuelled inflation, soaring business rates and falling consumer confidence.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Retail depends on customers having money in their pockets. One reason why some shops are struggling is because wage growth has been very weak.

“Government needs to up its game, boost the economy and invest in great jobs that people can live on.”

Experts said 2018 will go down as the year of the Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) — an insolvency procedure used to push through several store closure programmes this year.

Soaring business rates have been flagged as a major contributor to retail failures.

Robert Hayton, of Altus Group, said: “Business rates are rarely the sole driver for insolvencies but certainly a contributory factor, with bills having risen by more than a fifth through inflation during the seven years before last year’s revaluation.

“Add that to the lethal cocktail of other increased operating costs for the national living wage and apprenticeship levy and it creates the perfect storm for 2018 being the year of the CVA.”