A tycoon dubbed the ‘Del Boy billionaire’ has saved the Wilko brand – but all 398 stores are still set to close with the loss of thousands of jobs.

The Range – which was set up and is run by entrepreneur Chris Dawson – yesterday finalised a deal to buy the Wilko name, website and intellectual property for £5m.

The agreement will see The Range sell Wilko products in its stores and online – though just 36 jobs at Wilko’s website team will be saved.

Separate deals already struck with B&M and Poundland mean 122 Wilko stores employing 3,200 staff will reopen under their names – raising hopes that further jobs will be saved.

But the failure to find a buyer for the whole business means the majority of the 12,500-workforce look set to lose their jobs.

Jane Steer, Wilko administrator at auditor PwC, said: ‘Since our appointment, the feedback from customers and wider stakeholders during this challenging period has reinforced the fact that Wilko remains a much loved and trusted brand within the UK.

‘This sale to The Range will ensure that the Wilko name lives on under their ownership and we wish The Range every success.’

The Range was set up by Dawson in 1989 on a business park in his native Plymouth and now has 213 stores across the UK selling homeware and garden products.

The 71-year-old entrepreneur, who started in business selling seafood from the back of a van at markets, has previously said he has tried to emulate Topshop tycoon Philip Green and Only Fools And Horses character Derek ‘Del Boy’ Trotter.

Dawson’s love of the latter is evident by his £250,000 Rolls-Royce Wraith coupe that sports £35,000 DE11 BOY number plates.

Dawson and his wife Sarah ranked 85th on The Sunday Times’ Rich List this year with a fortune of £2billion, rubbing shoulders with Ovo Energy founder Stephen Fitzpatrick and hedge fund manager Chris Rokos. 

He has described The Range as ‘a poor man’s John Lewis’ – but that hasn’t stopped it attracting well-heeled customers.

The Princess of Wales was seen doing last-minute Christmas shopping in 2018 at the King’s Lynn branch near the Norfolk home she shared with Prince William.

Speaking to The Daily Mail about his success nearly a decade ago, Dawson said: ‘When I realised I had become a billionaire, I cried. Good achievement, yes, but I felt frightened, lonely and hollow. I thought this is the end, the show is over, what do I do for an encore? It’s nice, but I am no happier being a billionaire.’

e grew up near to Plymouth Sound in a council estate in the city, and said his family was so poor when he was a child that he didn’t own a pair of underpants until he was 12.

Dawson’s time in the spotlight, however, has not been without controversies. He is said to have saved millions of pounds in tax by reportedly handing over ownership of his main business to his wife – who lives in Jersey. 

Dawson met her when he was selling watches as a trader, when his nickname was ‘Dickie Dirt’ Dawson.

Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at investment platform AJ Bell, said: ‘The Range boss has never been one to shy away from his wheeling and dealing roots and there is a touch of a superior jumble sale in the way the retail business shoehorns a startling array of stuff onto its shelves.

‘But as the past few weeks have highlighted, it’s not enough to simply put things up for sale and expect that people will buy them. 

‘The Range has relevance to a huge range of people and not just because it stocks a lot of stuff but because it stocks the right stuff.

‘Chris Dawson makes no apologies for the way he’s grown his business. He seeks out dying retailers and grabs the bits he wants on the cheap. But you don’t succeed without a bit of nous, a bit of steel and a lot of luck.’

Welcoming the deal, Dawson said: ‘These are exciting times for The Range, I am delighted that Wilko will join our family of companies.’

Workers in Brisbane are more likely to switch jobs every year than in any other part of Australia to get a pay rise during a cost of living crisis.

An analysis of LinkedIn profiles by Resume.io has revealed the Queensland capital had the highest rate of job hopping with 18.6 per cent of employees leaving after just a year.

Brisbane also has a younger population than Sydney or Melbourne and is home to a high proportion of inner-city renters and university students.

The high staff turnover is also linked with a higher concentration of banking, information technology and hospitality jobs.

By comparison, 18.1 per cent of Adelaide workers left within 12 months, compared with 16.7 per cent in Canberra, 15.5 per cent in Melbourne, 15.2 per cent in Hobart, 14.1 per cent on the Gold Coast and Newcastle, 14 per cent in Wollongong and Sydney, and 13 per cent in Geelong.

Amanda Augustine, a career expert with Resume.io, said switching jobs was a better way to get a pay rise.

‘Your salary can increase by as much as 20 per cent each time you change jobs whereas most employees only receive an annual pay rise of 3 to 4 per cent,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.

This is significantly higher than the 3.6 per cent increase in the wage price index during the last financial year.

Workers who stay in the same job are effectively receiving a 1.8 per cent cut in real wages because broader salary increases are lagging behind the 5.4 per cent inflation rate. 

That means switching jobs is also a better way to receive better working conditions with unemployment still low at 3.7 per cent.

‘In addition, it’s often easier to negotiate package add-ons and flexible working arrangements during a new job discussion than it is during a compensation discussion with your current employer,’ Ms Augustine said.

At the other end of the scale, Newcastle had the most loyal employees with 20.5 per cent having been with the same employer for 10 years or more.

That put it ahead of Brisbane’s 20.3 per cent, Adelaide and Wollongong on 20 per cent, Sunshine Coast on 18.5 per cent,  Hobart and Geelong’s 17.4 per cent, Melbourne and Canberra’s 15.5 per cent and the Gold Coast on 15.4 per cent.

Sydney was nowhere to be seen on the top 10 list for employee loyalty. 

Job hopping could, however, slow down with the Reserve Bank of Australia expecting the jobless rate to rise to 4.5 per cent by the end of 2024.

That would see 114,500 people lose their job.

But cost of living pressures, in some areas, are continuing to worsen, despite a recent moderation in overall inflation, making job switching a high priority.

Commonwealth Bank data, based on the spending habits of its seven million customers, showed annual education costs surging by 14.7 per cent in August, up from 9 per cent in July following a surge in new international students.

Queensland, the state with a higher proportion of job switchers, had the biggest monthly spending growth in August of 1.5 per cent. 

The Wood Group have won a contract with Britain’s largest North Sea oil and gas producer, which it says will provide hundreds of jobs in the Aberdeen area.

The London-listed company said it has entered into a five-year contract with Harbour Energy for $330million (around £262million).

In a statement, Wood said it will ‘provide engineering, procurement and construction and operations and maintenance services, including digital and decarbonisation solutions, for a number of Harbour’s offshore assets critical to UK energy security.’

Steve Nicol, Wood’s executive president of operations, said: ‘We are incredibly proud to have been selected and trusted by Harbour Energy to partner with them across their North Sea assets. 

‘We share a commitment to ensuring safe, reliable and sustainable energy production and are confident our integrated digital solutions and world-leading engineering, operations and decarbonisation expertise will enable Harbour to maximise their investment and ensure the UK continues to have the energy mix it needs.’

Last week, Harbour Energy revealed it had swung to a small first-half loss as the effect of declining energy prices was compounded by high tax payments.

Britain’s largest North Sea oil and gas producer reported an $8million loss for the six months ending June, having made a $1billion profit for the same period last year.

The company saw turnover from hydrocarbon production plummet by around a quarter to $1.99billion as oil and gas prices slid from their elevated highs.

Nicol added: ‘We have worked on North Sea assets for more than 50 years and excel in designing and managing the complexity of energy infrastructure while at the same time seeking to minimise associated emissions. 

‘This new agreement and new contracts are testament to Wood’s role as a trusted technical partner to the energy companies of the future, where our priority is to help our clients deliver the energy the world needs and be able to transition to a low carbon future.’

Audrey Stewart, Harbour Energy’s vice president of supply chain, said: ‘Harbour is excited to develop our relationship with Wood and the signing of this contract is an important step forward in establishing our suite of long-term strategic partnerships across our North Sea assets.’

This partnership will support the employment of hundreds of people from Wood’s Operations business in Aberdeen and offshore across the two EPC and O&M contracts, with further recruitment expected in 2024.

Harbour shares were up by 0.55 per cent to 255p in Monday afternoon trading. 

The number of jobs in the UK financial services industry has hit a record high – in a sign that much of the gloom about the sector has been misplaced.

City minister Andrew Griffith said it showed the industry was ‘a jewel in Britain’s crown that even the doomsters cannot deny’. 

Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures last week showed the number of jobs in financial and insurance activities hit 1.235m in the first quarter of the year – 34,000 more than at the end of 2022.

It was above a previous peak of 1.209m in 2008 and is the highest since comparable ONS figures began in 1978. Jobs in the sector have increased despite gnashing of teeth over the City’s future after Brexit.

And more recently there has been much soul searching over the UK losing companies such as chip designer Arm to New York – prompting reform efforts in Whitehall and the City. Yet the UK continues to more than hold its own against European rivals. Figures from the end of June show the total market value of firms listed in London at £4.7 trillion compared with £3 trillion for rival Paris.

And there has been an increase in jobs since the pandemic – up by 119,000 since the third quarter of 2020.

Britain demonstrated its attractiveness as a global financial centre in June when US venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz said it would open its first international office in the UK.

Griffith told the Mail: ‘Our vision for Britain as the most open, innovative and competitive financial centre in the world is bearing fruit.’

He said the UK had ‘seized the opportunities of Brexit’ through laws which will help unlock billions in investment. He added: ‘Our financial services industry is a jewel in Britain’s crown that even the doomsters and armchair generals cannot deny.’

Efforts to reinvigorate the City’s status as a financial centre have been under way in recent months. Listing regulations are being tweaked while the Government changed rules to unlock more of the trillions of pounds held by UK pensions and insurance firms.

City of London figures show financial services produced £193billion in economic output in 2022.

The internet is moving past ‘quiet quitting’ – when someone does only the bare minimum at work, putting in only the effort required to get the job done.

Gallup’s latest worker poll found nearly six in 10 adults in America are quiet quitting after the pandemic caused people to prioritize their ‘me time’.

But a new trend that piggybacks on this premise has emerged – the ‘lazy girl’ job. The term went viral thanks to a TikTok video with millions of views.

The premise of a lazy girl job is simple: Low stress, low effort, with lots of flexibility and freedom.

These jobs are remote, require no overtime, are physically safe, and there’s minimum to no supervision.

TikTokker @gabrielle_judge defined them as jobs with laid-back bosses and comfortable salaries that pay the bills but don’t require a chaotic work schedule. It’s the antithesis of the ‘girl boss’ movement or ‘leaning in’ — constant hustling and long hours to climb to the top.

What kind of jobs are we talking about, exactly?

Searches for ‘lazy girl jobs’ are up 1,267% over the past month, according to Workamajig. 

Gen Zers, especially, are interested. It’s even popular enough that it’s got a Wikipedia page.

Workamajig crunched the numbers (TikTok search volume) to find the 25 most popular lazy girl roles. Together, #lazygirljob and #lazygirljobs have a combined 25 million-plus views.

Using KeywordTool, we analyzed various roles aligned with the ‘lazy girl jobs’ trend, according to TikTok and Reddit users, to find the most searched on TikTok. Data was pulled by searching different jobs—like ‘Community Moderator job’ —and ranked based on the number of TikTok searches they’ve had on the app in the U.S. as of August 10 to determine TikTok’s most popular ‘lazy girl jobs.’ Search data is correct as of August 10, 2023, and analyzed over the preceding year. 

Maybe it’s the branding

Many complaints about the term come from those who say it paints a bad picture. Social media strategist Michael Durwin told the Wall Street Journal the movement makes sense, but the name is all wrong. ‘I think younger women are using it almost in a way that they don’t understand the damage it can do,’ he says.

But would the term have gone so viral with a more acceptable term like ‘work-life balance?’ Probably not.

Marshalls slashed around 250 jobs in the first half as the building materials supplier’s profits were rocked by a slowdown in the property market.

The paving stone specialist’s adjusted profit before tax was down by 26 per cent to £33.2million year-to-year for the six months to 30 June. 

CEO Martyn Coffey said the job cuts were necessary after ‘challenging’ market conditions ‘led to a material reduction in volumes across all three of our reporting segments’.

Marshalls shares were down by 1.16 per cent to 255p in morning trading on Wednesday. 

Rivals Travis Perkins and SIG have also been hit by the building slowdown, which has been driven by rising interest rates and their impact on mortgage rates. 

Earlier this month, Travis Perkins said that it expects adjusted operating profits, which shrunk by 31 per cent in the first half, of about £240million for the full year, compared to £295million in 2022.

SIG also warned that profits are set to come in at the lower end of forecasts, amid ailing demand across Europe and a spike in operating costs.

Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey also warned this month that higher mortgage rates are weighing on potential customers’ ability to afford to buy new homes.

Marshalls, which benefited from homeowners upgrading their gardens and driveways during the pandemic, said it had seen a ‘marked’ softening in demand during some months in 2022.

Coffey added: ‘This resulted in a significant decline in Group profitability compared to the first half of 2022. We have responded by taking action to improve our agility, reduce capacity, take cost out of the business, and manage cash. 

‘Regrettably, these actions necessitated in a reduction of approximately 250 roles across the organisation. However, we have been careful to ensure that we have sufficient latent manufacturing capacity that will allow us to respond quickly when there is an improvement in market conditions.’

The group’s interim results continued a trend in its decline in profitability.

In October, Marshalls issued a profit warning as the cost of living crisis forced households to cut back on landscape projects.