The Fall Of Britain's High Street

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for the UK High Street, despite retailers gearing up for what will be their busiest period of the year (especially after being closed for large parts of the year), two of the high streets leading retailers have been facing a completely different prospect.  

It was announced at the start of December that Arcadia Group (owner of brands such as Topshop, Wallis and Dorothy Perkins) is set to enter administration and Debenhams is set to go into liquidation after 242 years of trading.  

There was some hope that Debenhams could be saved after it was revealed that JD was in talks to take over the department store, however, they’ve since pulled out.  

With these announcements comes a frightening prospect, with 25,000 workers set to lose their jobs due to the company's collapse.   

This could even lead to a further increase in the amount of 16-to 24-year-olds out of work after figures revealed there were 174,000 less young people employed compared to the last 3 months. This is likely due to businesses such as hotels, restaurants and other companies in the hospitality industry being closed for lockdown, as well as graduates and school leavers entering a busy job market.  

There’s no denying that the retail industry is going through a transitional period at the moment, it’s no longer enough to be a giant on the High Street, you now must have an online presence as well. In fact, some of the biggest clothing brands are now completely online based, with prettylittlething, Asos and boohoo.com now considered industry leaders .

With the industry changing at such an alarming rate, it’s a worrying time for the 2.9 million people that are employed in retail.  

If this pandemic has highlighted anything, it’s that the need for transferable skills has never been so important, we’ve seen GB athletes take warehousing jobs and lifelong car manufacturers retrain for digital roles all too keep up with the way industries have been changing.  

In this period of uncertainty now could be the best time to look at your transferable skills and ways you could enhance these to prepare for industry changes or if you begin looking for new opportunities in completely different industries.  

The AIM Group offer a number of free online courses that can help you enhance your current skills and improve your employment opportunities if you’re looking for work. Each course is specially developed to stay current with industry standards and ensure everything you learn is relevant to the industries you’re looking at.  

If this sounds like something, you’d be interested in then CLICK HERE to sign-up!