Wilko: As 52 stores close, more jobs will be lost

There will be job losses for an additional 1,300 employees at the bankrupt store Wilko.

Administrators PwC, who are monitoring the chain’s sale, said 52 locations would close owing to a “absence of viable offers for the entire business.”

Wilko struggled with losses and entered administration in August.

A full rescue of the company is in doubt after a deal proposed by the owner of HMV fell through, although rival retailer B&M announced it will purchase hundreds of Wilko’s stores.

The GMB union, however, asserted that Wilko employees at B&M-purchased stores would not be transferred over and would instead be laid off.

The GMB claimed it was investigating if current Wilko employees may receive “preferential treatment” when applying for any B&M positions that might open up.

Additionally, the fate of an additional 300 stores is still up in the air because it’s believed that finance concerns prevented Doug Putman of HMV from moving forward with his proposals.

Since its establishment in 1930, Wilko has grown quickly to rank among Britain’s top retailers. In the present, it employs about 12,500 people.

But in recent years, the cheap retailer has had to contend with fierce competition from rivals like B&M, Poundland, and Home Bargains.

The bulk of Wilko locations are located on High Streets, which are competing with suburban retail parks with parking for customers.

A total of 1,016 layoffs will be made at 52 stores nationwide, according to the GMB, which represents approximately 4,000 Wilko employees. Affected employees will be notified at 10:00 BST on Wednesday.

It further stated that 24 Wilko’s locations would close on Tuesday of next week and another 28 would close on Thursday.

PwC stated that additional 299 positions would be eliminated on Thursday at Wilko’s two distribution centers in Worksop and Newport.

The Wilko support center has already eliminated about 269 positions.

Although the administrators expressed their satisfaction with the £13 million B&M deal, they added that it was evident from conversations with possible buyers that several outlets were not of interest.

According to Edward Williams, joint administrator at PwC, “store closures and redundancies of team members from those stores are now necessary, in addition to the already announced redundancies at the support center and distribution centers, in the absence of viable offers for the entire business.”

Administrators stated that they were aggressively pursuing potential purchasers and that they were continuing to “explore all interest in the remaining business.”

Retailers including Dunelm and Tool station have encouraged Wilko staff to apply for positions.

The GMB union’s national secretary, Andy Prendergast, stated that the organization was “doing everything we can to secure a deal that would protect the majority of jobs and stores.”

He claimed that the most recent disclosure would provide “little solace to those who don’t know how they’ll pay their bills.”

“Every single redundancy is a person who will wake up facing an uncertain future,” he continued.

“In actuality, years of poor management have brought us to this point.”