Claire’s Accessories goes under - blaming Rachel Reeves for the 1,300 jobs lost

[ProudAmberTurtle]

Claire’s Accessories has just gone bust - and over 1,300 people have lost their jobs.

I know it’s overpriced plastic and the piercing guns were always a bit controversial, but it’s been a total rite of passage for many girls. First earrings, birthday parties and that excitement of spending their pocket money on some glittery rubbish... it feels like another bit of childhood nostalgia is being wiped out.

But what’s really grating is why. According to the owner, the final nail in the coffin was the massive hike in National Insurance contributions from Rachel Reeves. It wasn't the only factor obviously - the high street is doing very badly, but it was the decisive factor.

How can a business that relies on young, part-time staff survive when their overheads have just been hiked through the roof? It’s not just the big brands; it’s the independent shops too. We’re going to be left with nothing but vape shops and empty units at this rate.

There was a report yesterday that Starmer will sack Reeves if the local elections go badly for him. Why can't they both go whatever the result?

Consumers are tending to be more environmentally aware than they used to be. Buying cheap tat is out of fashion. Also people have less money to spend on these items due to the increased cost of living. I feel sorry for those who worked there.

Where I live teen girls love charity shops.

And online shopping.

Seems convenient to blame the government, NI may be the straw that broke the camels back but the end was coming from them sooner or later.

They were outdated and overpriced, and didn’t adapt to their consumers or the market.

Plus employing lots of part time, very young staff means that probably the majority didn’t earn enough to have to pay NI anyway, so it’s very disingenuous to blame the NI increase when it’s obvious it’s the business model in an internet age which has finally caught up with them.

I found it bad in Dunelm for a while

I’d like to know if the taxpayers will have to pick up the tab for owed wages, redundancy, notice and holiday pay. Sir Phillip Green being on his yacht when we the taxpayers had to pay his staff was insult to injury. Staff deserve their £s, no question - just fed up profits being private but liability public in situations like this via Redundancy Payments Service.

Agreed. I didn't say should.
But jumping up and down with delight because you don't happen to like what Claire's sells and using it as an opportunity to parade your superior ethics is just crass.
Have people completely lost the ability (or desire) to put themselves in someone else's shoes?
I hope no one who lost their job yesterday reads this awful thread. They may be worrying about keeping a roof over their head, but that's fine because Mnetters don't like 'plastic tat'.
Take a look at yourselves.

Well said. Plus this stuff has a habit of getting closer to home with jobs and payments going down as much as the gov is defended over CA.

Definitely Rachel Reeves and not the $2 billion dollars of debt the company is carrying. Definitely not that.

It is.

I don't even support the NI increase policy either, in fact I dislike NI as a concept. But one wonders if some people might be quite so willing to swallow this explanation if it didn't happen to blame someone they already dislike.

I doubt people will feel the same if it’s their job or payment under threat.

My dd loved it in there. But unless they had a sale on, earnings etc and the like are cheaper in Primark. Much much cheaper.

I never grasped the offers either. Couldn't work out how much the totals would be. So a clearer lower price on everything rather than complicated offers might have helped.

Perhaps, but interesting that you don't attempt to argue that these people would be objectively correct about the importance of this one particular factor as against the many, many others.

Not sure what you mean here. As said it’s obvious a harsh business environment hits more at risk companies first, whatever the reason for that is.

Then you can see the fallout on other threads with dc stuck at home, even if people can’t connect the issues on this one.

It also tends to snowball so if people feel immune and CA is a nothing and good riddance it could always be them up next. And that’s not only for jobs but any money received.

The NI hike has been a fucking disaster in social care. Poorly thought out.

I haven't seen anyone "defending the government over CA". What a strange thig to say.

Even OP and CA acknowledge that the NI hike wasn't the sole cause of the collapse. That is what is being discussed.

There wasn’t this frothing over Russell and Bromley going bust, probably because they said it had been on the cards since 2019.

yeh no thanks

That’s Dan Hodges in the Daily Heil. You may as well cite The Beano 😂

It was one of those swept up by Next, most of the shops like that are because they can sell them on their very large, profitable online platform without having to bother with stores so less jobs that way as well and more profit for Next

The irony is that VAT went up to pay for more welfare, jobs were lost so more are on welfare. The economic illiteracy of Labour, but some still buy it.
National Debt rocketed due to Covid bailouts, we needed financial restraint for a decade not profligacy.

UK borrowing was at the lowest for 3 years at the end of March. Then Trump started his war.

I mean it's interesting that you made an appeal to emotion rather than trying to argue that anyone who actually believes the Claire's bosses explanation is correct. So I wonder whether you actually think and are willing to defend the claim that was the reason, rather than the multiple others that they haven't mentioned.

Re op states the owner’s opinion and it cites the hike in NI. From BBC

‘It also blamed the climate on the High Street, which it said "remains extremely challenging", adding that government policy had caused a tough trading environment by raising staffing costs such as National Insurance Contributions.’