The Office for National Statistics today confirmed that the UK has lost 210,000 payrolled employees in the year to April 2026, with vacancies falling to their lowest level since the spring of 2021. The figures, published this morning, show payrolled employment down 100,000 on the month alone, and the unemployment rate rising to 5%.
In Minehead, four businesses have closed or announced closure since the start of the year, The Original Factory Shop, Holland & Barrett, the Brewers Fayre restaurant and the Yorkshire Building Society agency.
Butlin's Minehead, the town's largest single private-sector employer, is in formal redundancy consultations after the resort's rateable value rose by 270 per cent, a £3.8 million annual cost increase, under the April 2026 business rates revaluation.
The administrators of The Original Factory Shop, which closed its Minehead store at the end of March, cited "challenging trading conditions, linked to high cost inflation, fragile consumer confidence and rising labour costs caused by government policies" as the cause of the chain's collapse.
James Wright, Exmoor farmer and campaigner, said: "This morning's statistics are felt right here in Minehead. They are the family at Butlin's facing a redundancy letter after twenty years of service or the Holland & Barrett worker now looking for a job. The Labour Government promised growth, and the British people have been delivered the largest single annual fall in payrolled employment outside the pandemic.’
Mr Wright said the Conservative Party had set out a clear alternative. "Kemi Badenoch's plan would abolish business rates for thousands of high street shops, pubs and cafés, the very businesses being driven out of towns like Minehead. The Conservatives would also axe the Carbon Tax that is killing British industry and repeal the Energy Profits Levy that is choking domestic energy production and keeping bills high. These are practical, costed policies that would put working people, small businesses and rural towns first.”
The next ONS labour market release is scheduled for 18 June 2026. A new Post Office is expected to open in Minehead to replace the branch which will close in June.
