Wilko store closures: More than 1,000 staff face redundancies

Administrators for Wilko has confirmed they will make more than 1,000 workers redundant and close 52 stores, the GMB Union has said.

Workers will be informed at the latest by 10am on Wednesday.

GMB said that 24 of the sites will close on Tuesday, September 12 while the remaining 28 will close two days later, leading to 1,016 redundancies.

More Wilko staff to be made redundant

The job losses also include 299 at the company’s two warehouses with workers being invited to a meeting on Wednesday after which they will be allowed to go home, GMB said.

There will be a further 17 redundancies among Wilko‘s digital team at its support centre.

The GMB said that PwC is still working with a bidder for Wilko “who has made an offer for a significant part of business”.

It added: “Whilst there remains a possibility that this fails to deliver, we are working extremely hard and doing everything we can to help it over the line.”

The union also indicated that workers at the 51 shops that B&M said earlier on Tuesday that it had bought will not transfer automatically to the new owner.

“Accepting that all details, including even the number of stores involved, are covered by confidentiality agreements, we can say that any such bid would appear to be for store premises only. This would mean that whilst new brands may open on site, workers would not transfer to these,” it said.

The union added: “We are making inquiries about the possibility of current staff being given preferential treatment in applying for any jobs that may appear, but at time of writing we cannot confirm these will apply.”

Edward Williams, joint administrator at PwC, said: “In the absence of viable offers for the whole business, very sadly store closures and redundancies of team members from those stores are now necessary, in addition to the already announced redundancies at the support centre and distribution centres.

“We know this has been a deeply unsettling time for everyone concerned and would like to express our gratitude to all Wilko team members for the dedication and support they have continued to give the business in the most trying of circumstances.”