The High Street suffered the sharpest drop in optimism since the pandemic this month as retailers counted the cost of Rachel Reeves’s Budget raid.
The Chancellor’s National Insurance increase and inflation-busting minimum wage hike saw shops slash hiring and investment and threaten steep price rises.
A closely watched measure of retail confidence fell at the fastest pace in five years just one month after Reeves’s controversial policies came into effect.
In a further blow to the High Street, a gauge of how sales fared compared to a year earlier dropped 27 per cent – and are expected to decline even faster next month – the figures from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) showed.
CBI lead economist Ben Jones said: ‘This was a fairly downbeat survey.’
Squeezed: Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s NI increase and inflation-busting minimum wage hike saw shops slash hiring and investment and threaten steep price rises
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