Next has warned today that it may struggle to deliver its normal service in the run up to Christmas unless the British government relaxes post-Brexit immigration rules to allow more workers into the country.
Britain is already facing disruption caused by worker shortages.
A dearth of truck drivers in the world's fifth-largest economy is already threatening fuel supplies and has led to some gaps on supermarket shelves, with many blaming Brexit.
Next, led by the Brexit-backing Simon Wolfson who has previously warned against cutting immigration, said today that its clothing and homeware stores and online shop could be affected in the run-up to Christmas, Britain's peak buying season.
"We anticipate that, without some relaxation of immigration rules, we are likely to experience some degradation in our service in the run up to Christmas," the retailer said in its half-year results statement.
Finding staff for warehousing and logistics jobs for the peak season was beginning to come under pressure, it said.
Next hopes that Britain will temporarily allow foreign workers to come to the UK, reversing post-Brexit labour rules. To tackle the shortage of drivers, the government last week said it would issue temporary visas to 5,000 foreign drivers.
Reuters reported this week that warehouses in Britain are having to pay up to 30% more to recruit staff after worker shortages exacerbated pressure on already buckling supply chains and threatened to derail the seasonal buying spree.
Next said its stock levels were currently down 12% compared with the period before the pandemic but it said it had got better at operating with less stock.
Next today also raised its full-year profit outlook for the fourth time in six months as it reported a 5.9% rise in first-half profit on a two-year basis, benefiting from strong trading since Covid-19 restrictions ended.
Next, which trades from about 500 stores as well as online, made a pretax profit of £347m in the six months to July, on full-price sales up 8.8% compared to 2019 - before the Covid-19 pandemic started to disrupt trading.
The group said full-price sales in the last eight weeks increased 20% versus 2019, materially exceeding its expectations.
It raised its full-price sales guidance for the rest of the 2021-22 year to up 10%, from 6% previously, and its forecast for pretax profit to £800m, £36m ahead of its previous guidance.
Next has shown great resilience during the pandemic, benefiting from its long-established and well invested online operations.
Rivals with weaker or no online business, notably Primark, saw large falls in sales.
Others such as Topshop-owner Arcadia and Debenhams have gone bust.
Shares in Next are up 37% over the last year.
