{"id":145793,"date":"2025-09-18T17:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/145793\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T17:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T17:50:07","slug":"fashion-retailer-next-warns-uk-economy-faces-anaemic-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/145793\/","title":{"rendered":"Fashion retailer Next warns UK economy faces ‘anaemic’ growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

In its results, the retailer said, external<\/a>: “The medium to long-term outlook for the UK economy does not look favourable.<\/p>\n

“To be clear, we do not believe the UK economy is approaching a cliff edge. <\/p>\n

“At best we expect anaemic growth, with progress constrained by four factors: declining job opportunities, new regulation that erodes competitiveness, government spending commitments that are beyond its means, and a rising tax burden that undermines national productivity.”<\/p>\n

It outlined a surge in half-year profits boosted by the summer weather and disruption at rival Marks & Spencer, which was caused by a major cyber attack<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, Next expects sales growth to slow sharply due the economy outlook and dampened consumer spending.<\/p>\n

“We first raised concerns about a potential weakening in UK employment in our report two years ago”, the company said.<\/p>\n

“Since then, vacancies have continued to fall, and PAYE payroll numbers are now moving backwards.<\/p>\n

“The problem appears to be that employment, particularly at the entry level, faces the triple pressure of rising costs, increasing regulation, and displacement through mechanisation and AI.”<\/p>\n

The warning from the retailer comes ahead of the government outlining its tax and spending plans in the Budget in November.<\/p>\n

Next said job vacancies within the chain were down 35% – with steeper falls within stores.<\/p>\n

But it said the business was “in a good place, with multiple opportunities for growth, both in the UK and overseas”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In its results, the retailer said, external: “The medium to long-term outlook for the UK economy does not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-145793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}