Cable: Tesco job losses show deep problems within retail sector
Responding to reports that Tesco food counter closures and scale-backs could threaten up to 15,000 UK jobs, Leader of the Liberal Democrats and former Business Secretary Vince Cable said:
Job losses on this scale are very serious.
There are clearly deep problems within the retail sector, town centres have been declining for years but now out of town stores are struggling too. Perhaps British shoppers have stopped spending and we are on the verge of a serious downturn.
Confidence in the economy is low and the government must provide some stability and security to individuals and businesses in the UK.
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4 Comments
More likely to be the high cost of staff (ever increasing minimum wage is brilliant for the low paid but only if they can find an actual job) combined with clever shopping from the consumer that stops any meaningful price rises (product size reduction instead in many things) on the ever increasing cost of imports due to ruined Sterling.
Many shops I use have switched to auto-tellers… incidentally, these are not foolproof and I have had money disappear into them and been short-changed, almost as if they are plugged into the company’s mainframe and having an electronic heart attack when monetary targets aren’t met. You can sort of see a future where AI decides it is in the interest of the company to fiddle the customers to keep the company and machines running!
Of course, I am sure Tesco will dock top pay as well as cutting low paid staff just to be fair.
” Perhaps British shoppers have stopped spending and we are on the verge of a serious downturn.”
Perhaps we are. No doubt you’d like to say it was all down to Brexit. But has Brexit caused German Industrial Production to fall by 2% ?
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/europe-austerity-is-decision-to-go-into-recession-2019-1
Peter, looking at reports that Europe may go into recession, I also see that GDP dipped a few years ago, after having gone up following the recession of 2008. So it’s hard to say what will happen longer term. However, it presents an immediate political problem for those of us who wish to stay in the EU, does it not ?
As consumer needs change and new competitors enter the market so the distributors change their offer.
There’s nothing new about the retail changes.
Remember Woolworth’s.