British shops warn of job cuts and recruitment freezes as costs soar

British retailers have grown markedly more anxious about rising labour costs over the next year after new employment rights began to be implemented, a trade body survey of finance chiefs showed on Thursday.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government secured parliamentary approval for its Employment Rights Act in December.

The government has called the legislation the biggest upgrade to UK workers’ rights in a generation, arguing it is the best way to avoid the industrial...