Retail giants warn job opportunities for young people will be lost after ‘perfect storm of costs’

Thousands of young people face an “unemployment crisis” after a hiring freeze from shop owners threatens to reduce the number of part-time retail jobs.

While weekend retail jobs have been a rite of passage for generations, new estimates suggest more than 40,000 young people will miss out on shop floor jobs over the next three years, as the high street braces for a fresh tax raid.

On Wednesday, retail giants including Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Primark warned that there would be fewer job openings for young people after the sector was hit by a “perfect storm of costs”.

The Retail Jobs Alliance, which also includes Asda and Morrisons, said there was a “danger that opportunities for young people could be lost”.

“We urge the Government to protect our larger bricks-and-mortar stores, to prevent shutting off these opportunities and creating a lost generation,” a spokesman said.

They said many entry-level retail jobs were in large city centre stores, which are the ones at risk of being forced to close following the business rates shake-up.

Any further job cuts to entry-level roles threaten to make Britain’s struggle to get more younger people into employment even harder. Nearly one million people aged 16 to 24 are not in employment, education or training, recent figures show.

The Centre for Social Justice, a think tank, last week said this figure had increased by almost 200,000 since the pandemic to 948,000.

The latest warning comes as the Chancellor prepares to launch a fresh £1.7bn tax raid on big shops, raising fears that her plans will accelerate the decline of the high street.

Rachel Reeves’s planned reforms will push up the business rates for department stores, supermarkets and those with larger premises.

The changes will come just months after retailers were struck by a wave of higher worker costs when the Chancellor raised the minimum wage and increased the National Insurance contributions for employers.

It will add to growing concern over job security across Britain. On Tuesday, analysts from Deutsche Bank said that consumers already felt more at risk of being made unemployed.

In their UK Fear Index, the analysts said people were “generally more pessimistic around their future job security”.

Separate figures also out on Tuesday from Asda showed disposable incomes for Britain’s middle-income households declined for the first time in two years amid pressure from food, drink and transport inflation.

Asda’s Income Tracker showed that disposable incomes for households earning around £41,000 a year fell by 1.6 pc in July, as essential costs for Britons continued to rise.

Inflation rose to 3.8pc in July, the highest level since January 2024.

Sam Miley, from the Centre for Economics and Business Research, said: “While wages are expected to rise over the remainder of the year, persistently high inflation will put continued pressure on purchasing power.”

Retirees have also been hit by price hikes, as spare cash available for spending by pensioners fell for the fourth month in a row.

A government spokesman said: “We are committed to supporting Britain’s most loved high street chains to continue to create jobs and grow the economy which is why we’ve delivered an extra £45m in supporting young people into work.

“It’s why this pro-business government is also creating a fairer business rates system to protect the high street, support investment and level the playing field.” (The Telegraph)