John Lewis sales up over xmas, good for jobs or not?

[SallyA]

I saw this morning on the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8440511.stm) that John Lewis had a very good run up to Christmas this year! Like for like sales compared to last year were up over 12%!!!!!! I couldn’t believe it when I read it but apparently they sold goods worth over £100m in four weeks! Imagine that! Wowzer, I would love to be on the receiving end of the profit there! Haha!

The downside here though, is that the MD at John Lewis thinks that 2010 will not continue like this! He said that it will take a while before sales levels return to what they were before the recession! Especially with the higher taxes coming into affect, I think it is more likely to affect the price of goods and consumer spending than most think! I mean everything will just go up in price really won’t it? Retailers are not likely to bring prices down here!

What I was wondering is if this will lead to more jobs lost this year? I mean everyone was saying last year that we hadn’t seen the end of all the job cuts as yet! So how many more are we to expect really? Its all rather confusing isn’t it? Are we out of the recession or not?

[Poppy]

That's the 100m question isn't it. It would be great if we were, but in reality it doesn't appear to be so.

I've read a couple of reports that say the same thing as the John Lewis MD. We're not out of the woods yet and this year is still going to be a very challenging year for everyone.

Can only hope that job losses will not be on the same scale as last year.

[emmab]

i definately don't think it's over , but that amount of profit with the way the economy is , is almost unbelievable !!!!!

[Poppy]

It is, can't believe how much profit they made and I'm sure they not the only ones. Just wondering where all the money came from that the people spent.

I know for a fact I did not spend even half of what I would usually spend on gifts and stuff, most people I know have said the same thing. So where did all the extra spending come from?

[SallyA]

Thats whats shocked me the most to be honest! MAybe they had some huge deals on and incentives for people to come in and spend the money? Either way they did good!

I saw another report the other day saying M&S Share prices had dropped due to them not making the amount of money that was forecast or something? So not everyone has it as good do they?

I must say I went into M&S during the sale and was a bit disappointed - there wasn't much to buy to be honest! Very strange, normally its really good?