Edinburgh Woollen Mill to cut 600 jobs

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Oct 16, 2020

Edinburgh Woollen Mill on Friday confirmed that 50 of its stores will close with the loss of 600 jobs. Most of the closures are focused on the Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Peacocks chains with the job losses largely being shop floor workers.

The group, which also owns Jaeger and Austin Reed, employs around 24,000 people in total.

No details have yet been released of which stores will close. But reports said closing down clearance sale signs have already appeared in the windows of both the Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Peacocks stores in The Galleries shopping centre in Bristol, so it looks like the closures could come very quickly.

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A spokesman for the company said the firm has had to make “difficult decisions and take urgent action to try to secure the future of our businesses wherever possible.”

CEO Steve Simpson had earlier said that the firm has endured an "extremely difficult” seven months. He added that it’s “impossible” to get back to normal trading at present given the current coronavirus situation in Britain. And he said the situation had been made worse by false stories about the group owing millions of pounds in unpaid bills, affecting its credit insurance status.