As Marks and Spencers cuts 1,000 jobs and following the demise of Woolworths, recruiters have been urged to keep a tighter reign on bad debts.

Peter Burgess, director at retail recruiter RetailHR, told Recruiter that job cuts, along with banks not releasing money to cash strapped retailers, would hit the industry hard: “Bad debts will rise and recruiters will find it hard to pin down their clients on taking decisions.  There will be a lot of fall out in the retail sector of the recruitment industry in the coming year.  Again it will be the weaker or indebted players that will go first.

“I would strongly advise all recruitment firms to toughen up their debt collection.  Bad debts are going to be worse than ever before and for all but the most blue chip retailers, recruitment firms should not hesitate in using the online Court Service debt collection service, which is very efficient.”

Steve Walters, director at Blue Monday Recruitment, adds: “It all starts and ends with the relationship you have with your suppliers. By having that, you can work with them if you have some difficulty. If you don’t communicate with them regularly you will be at the bottom of the list.”