Retail Excellence: at least 25,000 retail staff could permanently lose jobs due to the pandemic

Today marks exactly one year since non-essential retail was closed for the first time. 

The sector has been shut continuously since the end of December, as part of level 5 restrictions.

Over 72,000 retail workers are on the pandemic unemployment payment - and Duncan Graham, from Retail Excellence, says many won't get their jobs back: 

"You're talking about 75,000 on the PUP at the moment, I'd say there's probably a third of those that could well and truly be in long term doubt in terms of whether they'll get their jobs back again. And you know, that's probably being conservative, it could be more than that, we certainly expect that there are going to be more high profile store closures between now and perhaps the end of this year."