Iconic high street brand with 17 Scottish stores set to axe 1,200 jobs
FOOT THE BILL Iconic high street brand with 17 Scottish stores set to axe 1,200 jobs
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A MAJOR high street brand with 17 shops across Scotland is set to axe over 1,000 jobs.
Popular shoe seller Clarks cut staff after reporting a £100m revenue loss over the past year.
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Clarks have axed over 1,000 jobs
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The iconic chain reported heavy losses
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The iconic shop chain announced their workforce had reduced from 7,413 to 6,161.
Hundreds of staff ended up out of a job after the chain made heavy cash losses last year.
The footwear specialists reported a £39.2m pre-tax loss, with sales down from £994.5m in 2023 to £901.3m over the latest tax year.
This comes after Clarks fell to a pre-tax loss of £39.8m in the 12 months prior.
Clarks currently has 17 stores in shopping centres and on high streets north of the border.
Bosses at the footwear chain said they were adopting a "cost-focused attitude" to recover from the cash losses.
They said their 'focus is to return to sustainable sales growth combined with a cost-focused attitude to delivery healthy store profitability in 2025'.
Clarks added: 'Significant changes have been made to the operations in the year to right size the overhead cost for the current business size, refocus the marketing approach, reposition the product assortment and set up the business for recovery and sustainable profitable growth in 2025."
The last time the shoe store reported a pre-tax profit was in 2022.
They posted a total of £35.9m for the 48 weeks to the end of that year.
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Last year, the chain also closed down some of their stores.
Clarks are not the only big name to be feeling the squeeze.
Many retailers have seen their bills increase, adding financial pressures.
And footfall has plummeted as punters are hammered by the cost of living crisis.
Just last month, River Island announced they were closing down a number of their Scottish stores.
The Original Factory Shop also broke the news in June some of their stores will be disappearing from the high street.
It comes as we told how Scotland's retailers have been hit by a devastating wave of closures as brands are blasted by the "perfect storm".
Our research shows major brands have pulled the shutters down on at least 25 Scots outlets this year — leaving scores of empty units across our towns and cities.
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