The drastic slump on the high street shows no signs of improving after a report indicated that 70,000 retail jobs were cut in 2018.
Customers are increasingly shopping on-line leading to huge falls in profits for many household name retailers.
The British Retail Consortium (BRC), who conducted the study, said that even the Christmas season failed to halt the decline of customers avoiding the high street.
The BRC’s report said there was a 2.2% decline in retail employment over the course of the last year
Chief executive of the BRC, Helen Dickinson, said: “The retail industry is undergoing a profound change and the latest employment data underpins those trends.
“Technology is changing both the way consumers shop but also the types of jobs that exist in retail.
“While we expect the number of frontline staff to fall over the next decade, there will be many new jobs created in areas such as digital marketing and AI (artificial intelligence).
“However, this transformation comes at a cost for retailers, who are already weighed down by the increasing costs of public policy, from sky high business rates to rising minimum wage.
“To support this investment in the future of retail, Government needs to play its part, reforming the broken business rates system to ensure it is fit for the 21st century.”
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