More than 20,000 shops may have closed for the last time following the coronavirus lockdown, the Centre for Retail Research has warned.
Closures and staff cuts across the UK could mean job losses of more than 235,000, up from fewer than 93,000 last year, warned the academics behind the study.
Professor Joshua Bamfield, director at the Centre for Retail Research, said: "We expect large retail businesses to now be looking at exactly how many stores they expect to operate in 2021 and beyond in order to trade successfully moving forward. They will now make plans to achieve those objectives."
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday that all non-essential shops would have to close for at least three weeks as the country tries to stop the spread of coronavirus.
The centre predicted more than 20,600 stores will have closed their doors for the final time by the end of the year, up on just 4,547 that closed in 2019.
But it predicts it could be the best year since 2011 for supermarkets, which have seen sales soar due to panic buying, though most of the 45,000 jobs created are not expected to become permanent.
The retail sector had sales of £384 billion last year and employs almost 3.5 million people both directly and in distribution and other retail services.
