Jobs bloodbath
John Lewis, Arcadia & Harrods to wield the axe in retail carnage Calls for furlough scheme to be extended for at-risk sectors
THOUSANDS more job losses were announced in a high street bloodbath yesterday.
Retail giants John Lewis and Philip Green’s Arcadia empire were among those adding to the deepening crisis.
Over two days some 12,250 job cuts were announced across the country in the fallout from the pandemic – about one in every 2,500 of the UK workforce.
After 6,000 were announced on Tuesday, a similar number followed yesterday – including up to 5,000 at catering group SSP, whose brands include Upper Crust and Caffe Ritazza.
The takeaway outlets at airports and rail stations suffered in lockdown due to the fall in air travel and commuting.
John Lewis confirmed stores could be closed and staff – known as partners – axed. It said: “The reality is we have too much store space for the way people want to shop now and we have shared this with our partners.
“It is highly unlikely we will reopen all our John Lewis stores.
“However, no decision has been made and any details would be shared with partners first, by the middle of July.”
Green’s Arcadia business, whose chains include Topshop and Dorothy Perkins, is shedding 500 of its 2,500 head office staff. It said: “This restructuring is essential to ensure that we operate as efficiently as possible during these very challenging times.”
Some of those axed are among the 14,500 whose wages have been paid by taxpayers since April.
Arcadia has been able
We have too much store space for the way people shop now
JOHN LEWIS SAYS SOME STORES COULD BE CLOSED
to use the furlough scheme despite Green, 68, who has lived in the tax haven of Monaco since 1998, having a fortune calculated at £930million by The Sunday Times Rich List.
Harrods also announced plans to axe up to 14% of staff – around 680.
Championship side Wigan Athletic went into administration, the first professional football club in England to do so since the pandemic.
Virgin Money restarted plans to close over 50 branches, with around 300 jobs expected to go.
The announcements come as firms face paying National Insurance and pension contributions for furloughed staff from next month. From September they must also fork out 10% of their pay, rising to 20% in October.
Unite’s Len McCluskey called for the Government to extend the Job Retention Scheme for workers in the most at-risk sectors, including aviation and retail.
Labour leader Keir Starmer also backed extending the furlough scheme, due to end on October 31. He said Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget next week “could be the last chance to save millions of jobs”.
Tory grandee Lord Heseltine said Boris Johnson’s recovery plan was “deeply disappointing”. Tuesday’s job losses included 1,900 at easyJet and 1,700 at Airbus. Union bosses warned the aerospace industry will be lost for ever without urgent help such as that being offered in France and Germany. Unite said nearly 12,000 job cuts have been announced by some of our biggest aerospace firms in recent months.
TOWNS in Yorkshire and Lancashire may be days away from a local lockdown, amid mounting criticism over testing data.
Bradford, Barnsley and Rochdale could be next after Leicester this week became the first city to have infection-control rules reimposed.
It comes as local authorities said that they have not, until now, been given the full breakdown of Covid-19 test results in their area.
Leicester officials said they did not see the full data for their area till days before the new lockdown.
Local officials will now get access to data down to a postcode level, under an agreement with the Department of Health.
The Government insists the data has always been available online.
Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said: “We should have had this data right from the start. Councils need to know what is happening in our communities.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer accused PM Boris Johnson of responding too slowly after the Government acknowledged an outbreak in Leicester on June 18 but waited 11 days to act.
He told the Commons: “There was a lost week while the virus was spreading.”
Snack giant Walkers yesterday confirmed 28 positive cases of Covid at its Leicester factory. A spokesman said: “Our situation reflects transmission in the community.”
Leicester has recorded 135 cases per 100,000 people – three times that of the next highest city.
Residents are being warned against going to Skegness and Mablethorpe, amid fears they will flee to the nearest seaside resorts.
Public Health England data shows that Barnsley, Bradford and Rochdale are the next worst affected regions, with at least 45 cases in the week up to June 21.
PHE lab testing data showed 36 cities and counties are seeing fresh spikes in cases. Barnsley council leader Sir Steve Houghton said: “We are seeing transmission in the community across the borough. We have had outbreaks in care homes, schools and workplaces.”
Bradford council leader Susan Hinchcliffe said: “Don’t be conned into thinking it’s all OK now, it’s not.”
There are six areas in the next worst affected category – 30-45 cases per 100,000: Bedford; Blackburn with Darwen, Lancs; Tame
side and Oldham, Gtr Manchester; Kirklees, West Yorks; and Rotherham, South Yorks. East Kent Hospitals NHS trust yesterday blamed a “second, late peak” after it recorded more than 10% of weekly Covid-19 deaths for the whole of England. In the week to June 29, 21 people died. The official UK toll of people who died after a positive Covid test yesterday reached 43,906, up 176 on the day before.
In Leicester, the arrival of mobile
testing units revealed how many cases were undetected. One in 10 of every spot tests came back positive, five times the national rate.
Top infection modeller Prof Neil Ferguson warned that Bradford and other towns are “clearly of concern” and said that further local outbreaks are “inevitable”.
He said of sharing testing data: “We have... a few weeks to resolve teething problems and get the modes of operation between local and national government working well. We will desperately need
them to work efficiently from September onwards.”
Boris Johnson said all local authorities across the country had received all the data, even though many say they have not.
He told the Commons: “We did in Leicester what we did in Kirklees or in Bradford or in Weston-super-Mare or other places where very effective whack-a-mole strategies have been put in place.”
But he claimed there were “particular problems” in in getting people to “understand” what was needed.
Mohammad Yasin, MP for Bedford and Kempston, said: “The Government is at best burying, at worst suppressing, crucial health information.”
In Gtr Manchester, officials said the rate of infection across their 10 councils was 13.3 per 100,000 people as of June 30.
The region’s mayor, Andy Burnham, said: “Why did they give the go-ahead for reopening on July 4 when they could see what was happening in Leicester?” Labour MP Yvette Cooper said authorities in her constituency in Wakefield, West Yorks, had been trying to get hold of testing data.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, of the British Medical Association, said: “The PM has talked about a strategy to tackle local outbreaks – this is no use if people leading the response are not given the most accurate up-to-date data.”
The Local Government AssoLeicester ciation’s Ian Hudspeth said: “Precise information is needed to help councils.”
The PM’s spokesman said: “Since April, detailed local data has been shared by PHE with local areas. Since June 11, a data dashboard was made available, which includes local tests.
“Last week, we started sharing postcode-level testing data with all local authorities including Leicester.”