Around 1700 Phones4U employees will lose their jobs after administrators of the stricken mobile retailer announced closure of 362 stores on Monday.
Phones 4U, which had 550 standalone stores and 5,596 employees, plunged into administration last Sunday after its key mobile supplier EE notified it would no longer continue business relationship with the UK retailer.
Administrator PWC said while 362 of the retailer’s stores will wind up, immediately costing 1,697 staff their jobs, another 720 people are being retained in the “short team” to assist with the closings in the short term.
Rob Hunt, the joint administrator, said with much regret that they had made the difficult decision to close a large number of stores, but promised to make every effort to help the affected staff, working with the Phones 4u HR team over the coming days to support employees.
Hunt added that it is a very sad day for the staff working at those locations and that their thoughts are with them.
Earlier this week, some of the rival mobile retailers and mobile network operators have come up with deals with the PWC administrators to takeover Phones4U stores.
While EE and Vodafone have agreed to take on 58 and 140 stores respectively, Dixons Carphone has confirmed it will hire 800 people who worked in Phones 4U concessions in nearly 160 stores.
List of Phones 4u stores that will be closing down will be available tomorrow.
