- High street fashion retailer H&M is cutting 1,500 jobs from its global workforce
- The Stockholm-based company needs to slash costs and the job losses will save around two billion Swedish Krona (£160 million)
- 56 of their stores have closed in the UK since 2020 as it scales back operations in Europe
Susannah Streeter, Senior Investment and Markets Analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown:
“The move by H&M to cut 1500 jobs across its operations are symptomatic of the problems facing the fashion retail sector. Keeping the lights and heating on in vast stores is becoming increasingly unaffordable with energy prices so volatile. With shoppers also becoming impressively price sensitive as cost-of-living headwinds continue to whip up, retailers are finding it more difficult to pass on increase in input costs. Shoppers are showing signs of trading down and hunting out bargains, so the pressure is on H&M to compete with chains seen as offering greater value, from Primark in high streets to Boohoo and Shein online. H&M has undergone an admirable shift to online, making shop assistants in store increasingly redundant, and this trend is clearly set to continue.”
