Hundreds of jobs lost at Topshop and Miss Selfridge

Stores have been under threat since the appointment of court-appointed liquidators

Topshop and Topman stores are to shut.

Almost 500 people directly employed at the Topshop and Miss Selfridge stores have lost their jobs after the liquidators failed to get a buyer for their Arcadia group parent, the Mandate trade union has said.

The union said it was told by the liquidators at Deloitte that there is no option but to shut the 14 shops in the Republic because of the extended Covid-19 lockdown and that the permanent redundancies are now inevitable.

The Arcadia stores which include Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, Evans, and Dorothy Perkins, were once the mainstay of Irish cities and towns. 

But the stores have been under threat since the appointment of the court-appointed liquidators in Ireland and administrators in Britain, in November, after struggling through successive lockdowns last year.

British online retailer Asos emerged as the preferred buyer to buy the brand names after fashion retail Next pulled out of the bidding in recent weeks.

It had appeared at an early stage that the stores in the Republic would be shut and the clothes brands sold online.

Jonathan Hogan, national co-ordinator at Mandate, said many more retail jobs at the Arcadia group were under threat because the clothes are sold by concessionaires through other outlets in the Republic.

The news comes after the closure of other leading fashion stores last year as the retail industry faced its second major crisis in 10 years.

At over 75,860, wholesale and retail workers account for the single largest group availing of the pandemic unemployment payments during the January lockdown, Government figures released on Monday showed.