Debenhams decline is a symptom of high street struggling to survive

Debenhams’ fall into administration and the loss of 22 stores is only the latest blow in a damaging war of attrition being waged on Britain’s high streets.

Related: Debenhams to close 22 stores: full list

Shop and restaurant chains, some owned by private equity firms, are battling to lower their rents with landlords, who in turn are blaming councils for not investing more in local amenities to make town and city centres destinations people want to visit. Retailers have a separate grievance with local and central government over business rates.

In most cases, the main protagonists say they cannot budge from their long-held positions, or will not budge merely to facilitate higher revenues for the other side, and so, month after month, the store closures continue.

One of the victims is the predominantly female workforce, which makes up 60% of the retail sector payroll and has relied on many of the now defunct or much reduced businesses for steady wages, sensible part-time rotas, holiday and sick pay and a pension.

In many parts of Britain these benefits are crucial to keeping a family’s financial head above water at a time when benefit freezes are pushing more working households into poverty and increasing the number of children in poverty.

On the frontline are the towns and smaller shopping arcades on the outskirts of cities that have probably lost their UK-owned Marks & Spencer and rely on the likes of US-owned Boots and its rival, the Hong Kong-owned Superdrug, to maintain a semblance of normality.

In 2016, the British Retail Consortium said that nearly 500,000 people will be vulnerable to job losses from the high street, 70% of whom will be women. In the last three months of 2018 alone some 70,000 retail jobs were lost and the figure continues to rise.

It is almost too obvious to say that the internet has changed the retail landscape, now that it accounts for a significant proportion of the sales of everything from electrical appliances to clothes and much else besides. Almost 19% of all retail purchases are online.

There appears to be little in the way of action to halt the decline. Some shop chains and landlords are trapped by the colossal debts they have incurred over the last 10 years – not to invest in stores but to hand over to shareholders. Councils, after 10 years of austerity, have few funds to freshen up their high streets, let alone overhaul them to take account of 21st century living.

John Philpott, an employment economist who runs JobsEconomist.com, said the official jobs figures show that openings elsewhere prevent retail workers from becoming unemployed.

“The question is about the quality of the work they are doing and the terms and conditions. You hear anecdotally that women who have lost their job working for a high street shop switch to working in a warehouse or distribution centre with robots for colleagues instead of people,” he said.

“The localised nature of retail jobs means that people cannot travel far to find alternative employment, which leaves them with little option but to work in the care industry or other sectors with worse terms and employment rights,” he said.