Up to 7,000 job losses likely in convenience stores

RETAILERS have warned that a dozen newsagents and convenience stores are closing down every week, with up to 7,000 job losses expected in the sector by the end of the year.

Convenience Store and Newsagent Association chief executive Vincent Jennings said that due to the small number of workers affected by each closure it was a hidden aspect of the worsening jobs crisis.

He said: “Because these jobs are being lost a handful at a time many people don’t realise the scale of the disaster, but this is a virulent cancer eating away at communities all over the country.”

The average number of employees in each store is 11, according to the association who suggested that if the present rate of closures is maintained in excess of 600 shops will close this year.

Mr Jennings said: “As the Government considers its economic framework it must do everything possible to sustain jobs and small businesses. Failure to do so will eviscerate the lifeblood of Ireland’s domestic economy.”

Local newsagents and convenience stores, many of which house vital services, began to see above average closures in August last year, but the trend has accelerated rapidly in 2009.

“The speed at which small enterprises are being driven out of business is unprecedented. It is truly a national wipe out, but approximately 60% of the closures are north of the line between Dublin and Galway,” Mr Jennings said.

The association are calling on the Government to implement a number of actions in order to curtail the closures. The organisation has indicated support for the British government’s focus of regulatory reform in order to ease administrative costs on small businesses.

“We desperately need a similar approach here. There are now so many regulations either existing or incoming, from new litter by-laws to tobacco display bans and other compliance issues which will cost shop owners large amounts of money,” Mr Jennings said.

Rural Community lobby group Muintir na Tíre president Martin Quinn said: “If these stores are allowed to go it will be just another aspect of the dismantling of services in rural areas that people have relied upon.”

Mr Quinn called for rural communities to contact local elected representatives to demand they take action to safeguard this “focal point of community life”.

“More pressure must be brought to bare on politicians, these shops cannot be allowed to go the same way as telephone kiosks and local financial services which have been allowed to disappear,” he said.