Lord Simon Wolfson, chief executive of Next, has warned of falling entry-level vacancies across the UK and urged the government to reduce the cost of hiring.

Speaking to the BBC, Lord Wolfson said the “increase in national insurance and national living wage last year increased the cost of entry-level, part-time work by 14 per cent, so first of all that has to be reversed.”

Lord Wolfson added that 19 workers now apply for every vacancy in Next shops, up from ten two years ago, at the same time as hiring workers has become more expensive.

The Employment Rights Act, which became law in December 2025, is already changing the ways employers can allocate work shifts and additional provisions will be enforced over the coming 12 to 18 months.

New rules on flexible work, which come into effect in 2027, will restrict retailers from temporarily offering workers additional hours to fill stores during busy periods.

Lord Wolfson said retailers will have to offer fewer Christmas hours as a result, as the rules make it “much harder to offer people those extra hours, because the risk is you then have to contract for those hours, forever”.

“And of course, you can’t afford to have the same number of people in your shop in February as you have in and around Christmas.”

A reduction in open retail roles and limits on seasonal work restricts the employment pool for young people, who the ONS tracks as accounting for one in every eight people working in retail.

The latest government employment figures show 16.2 per cent of young people aged 16 to 24 are unemployed, up by 110,000 on the previous year.

Retailers face rising costs on a number of fronts, as tariffs, supply chain issues, and the cost of employment increase.

In February, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) warned that 61 per cent of retail finance chiefs plan to cut staff hours and overtime, as the cost of employing workers increases. The same report found that 55 per cent of respondents expect to reduce headcounts and 45 per cent are planning to freeze recruitment.

Earlier this month, the BRC reported that consumers are also concerned about rising food prices. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has since suspended tariffs on 100 foods and asked supermarkets to pass on the savings to customers.

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