Wilko pushes High Street job losses to 100,000
Wilko pushes High Street job losses to 100,000
- Figures highlight the scale of the crisis that has engulfed the industry since Covid
- Debenhams and Philip Green’s Arcadia empire are among the high-profile victims
- At Wilko, up to 12,500 jobs could be lost forever
Wilko’s demise appears to have seen the number of jobs lost on the British High Street fall to more than 100,000 since 2020.
Figures from the Center of Retail Research (CRR) bring into sharp relief the scale of the crisis that has engulfed the sector since the pandemic.
Debenhams and Philip Green’s Arcadia empire – which included Topshop – were among the high-profile victims.
At Wilko, up to 12,500 jobs could be lost forever. Although rivals B&M and Poundland have bought a total of 122 stores, staff are unsure what will happen. The Range bought Wilko’s brand and website, but only saved 36 jobs in the digital team.
All 398 Wilko stores will be closed next month, the biggest bankruptcy since Woolworths in 2008. CRR data shows more than 17,000 jobs have been lost at large to medium retailers so far this year – including some already at Wilko have been lost. .
Downfall: As many as 12,500 jobs could be lost permanently at Wilko
These are actual jobs that are gone, not the jobs that were lost before another company steps in and takes over the workers.
In 2022, around 6,732 jobs were lost at retailers, while this was still 24,179 in 2021. In 2020, there were 53,364 when the side effects of the pandemic began.
This means that more than 101,000 people have lost their jobs since 2020, including Wilko employees who have been laid off or will soon be laid off.
There have been other major job losses at Arcadia (13,000) and Debenhams (18,500) in 2020. Last year, fashion brand Joules saw 133 staff made redundant after it was bought by Next, while fast-fashion brand Missguided saw 330 job losses. .
Third parties were eager to save the intellectual property and online brands of bankrupt retailers, but not their physical stores.
Susannah Streeter of Hargreaves Lansdown said: ‘Retailers need to have a razor-sharp focus on customers’ needs and the size of their wallets.’ But she added that it’s not just a case of brick-and-mortar retail losing out to e-commerce,
“Primark has the right product at the right price, it knows how to use social media to create the fear of missing out on an impact to get people into their stores,” she said.
‘But we cannot escape competition online either, stores have to be agile.’
She said Next and Marks & Spencer have created harmony between their online offering and physical stores.