A retail research body says over 170,000 high street jobs were lost in 2020 and warns that even more could go in 2021.

As the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns accelerated the uptake of e-commerce and causing declining customer spend, The UK’s high street retailers suffered a dismal 2020 in terms of job losses, and likely to lose more in 2021, reports BBC News.

This is according to new figures from the Centre for Retail Research (CRR) published on Friday 1 January. The CRR said the high streets lost 177,000 jobs in 2020 and it expects that a further 200,000 could be lost during the coming year

The figures point to one of the most troubled periods for the high street in the past 25 years, with the equivalent of 3,400 jobs lost every week during 2020.

CRR director, Joshua Bamfield, said 15,700 stores closed their doors permanently and more would follow. The total number of retail jobs lost in 2020 was up by almost a quarter on the 143,100 recorded for 2019.

In 2020, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer, Boots, John Lewis, Debenhams and Arcadia were among the major retail chains to announce big job cuts.

“Our forecast is based upon a number of factors such as the cumulative effects of months of closure and its impact upon cash flow, and rent arrears that will be payable when the moratorium ends,” said Bamfield, adding that the longer-term effects of the growth in online shopping will be massively damaging for physical shops.

The majority of the job losses were the result of store closures, as independents shut and big chains scaled back their physical presence.

Retail is the UK’s biggest private employment sector and is a particularly big employer of women. The CRR points out that the ongoing devastation of the high street means that entry-level jobs, traditionally female-held positions such as sales assistant and checkout operator, are being eradicated.

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