Fashion retailer Ted Baker is closing all its stores in Ireland and the UK today.

The closure of the 31 remaining stores, including those in Dublin, Kildare, and Belfast, places more than 500 jobs at risk, with 78 of them in Ireland, according to PA.

The retailer’s website has also been taken offline.

The closures come after the holding company behind the Ted Baker chain collapsed in the UK.

'Challenging conditions'

Retail Ireland Director Arnold Dillon said it’s part of a larger issue facing retailers at the moment.

“A lot of retailers across the country are facing very challenging conditions,” he told Breakfast Business with Joe Lynam.

“We saw in July that retail sales were down 2% on last year, but when you drill into that, clothing and fashion sales are down 6%.

“The market hasn’t fully recovered from the acute cost-of-living pressures we saw last year, and footfall remains a concern in many areas, affecting the attractiveness of our towns and cities.”

Cost of doing business

Mr Dillon said he is most concerned about the “spiralling cost of doing business” in Ireland.

“In particular, the labour market costs that are coming through the system,” he said.

“We saw a Government report in March of this year that suggested, if you take together the range of Government-supported labour market reforms coming through, retail businesses are facing labour market cost increases in the order of 37% over the next number of years.

“That’s just too much to bear for many businesses.”

Budget 2025

Mr Dillon hopes Budget 2025 will put forward solutions.

“We need some very significant interventions,” he said.

“In particular, we need additional and significant supports to offset some of those labour market increases.

“Also, a rethink around the timelines for some of those reforms being introduced and the effect they’re going to have in terms of business costs.”

The first Ted Baker outlet opened in Glasgow in 1988.

Main image: A Ted Baker store in Brighton. Image: Simon Dack / Alamy Stock Photo