High street takes a hammering

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

Numbers crunched by the Press Association show that approximately 50,000 stahave been made redundant or seen their role put under threat, with the bulk of them working for well-known highstreet chains.

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.

It adds to Toys R Us and Maplin, 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 Brexit-fuelled inflation, soaring business rates and falling consumer confidence.

Responding to the bombshell figures, the TUC called on the Government to “up its game” to stem the tide.

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 in history as the “year of the Company Voluntary Arrangement” – 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, head of UK business rates at 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.”