UK Department Store Selfridges to Cut 450 Jobs Due to Pandemic Hit

A woman wearing a protective mask walks past a Selfridges store at Oxford Street, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in London, Britain, on July 28, 2020. Hannah McKay/Reuters

LONDON—Upmarket British department store chain Selfridges said it needed to cut 450 jobs or 14 percent of its workforce, the latest UK retailer to be hit by the coronavirus pandemic which has battered sales and shut shops on the country’s high streets.

Selfridges, whose flagship London store is housed in a historic building on Oxford Street that opened in 1909, said in a letter to staff on Tuesday that the recovery from COVID-19 would be slow and it needed to make fundamental changes.