Marks & Spencer suggests high street squeeze to continue
Despite some better news on the high street over the last few days, with Tesco announcing up to 10,000 the new jobs and other companies are following suit, Stuart Rose has today stepped forward to suggest that the squeeze on the high street will continue for some time to come. His company, Marks & Spencer, has been suffering for the last few months and despite a number of highly publicised promotional days business has been difficult.
The announcement of significant new jobs on the high street has seen a number of analysts start to turn more positive for the future but the announcement from Stuart Rose could well take them all back to the drawing board. As we have covered a number of occasions, confidence and finance is the key to recovery in the UK economy with the high street a vital part of the recovery chain. The VAT reduction in late 2008 had been expected to increase business activity but really this failed to materialise.
Yesterday we also saw the Land of Leather hit trouble and bring in administrators to take over the business. It is very difficult to predict what will happen over the next few months as the signs are becoming more and more mixed as time goes on.
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