HMV falls into administration (From Tewkesbury Admag)

Surely they knew before Christmas they were in trouble so why continue to sell gift vouchers if there was a chance they could never be spent, My daughter had gift vouchers for Christmas which are now worthless, one lesson learnt "Never buy gift vouchers from anywhere again"

ali0268 wrote:
Surely they knew before Christmas they were in trouble so why continue to sell gift vouchers if there was a chance they could never be spent, My daughter had gift vouchers for Christmas which are now worthless, one lesson learnt "Never buy gift vouchers from anywhere again"

I am going to go on record here and say that I imagine the fate of 4000 staff who are likely to lose there jobs today is somewhat more significant an issue that your gift vouchers!

They keep selling them in the hope they will sell enough to keep the business afloat and to maintain the employment of 4000 people.

Regretably, HMV are another example of a business that did little to embrace the digital age and what they did was too late, the competion was already in place doing a better job. This whole thing was inevitable. Ironically, with the recent closure of the VAT loophole (which has forced play.com to stop trading directly with consumers), the high street music/DVD stores potentially had a chance to become more competitive against the online retailers.

It's a shame people are prepared to accept low quality, low bitrate 'virtual' music these days, to play on their low quality reproduction phones and mp3 players, rather than high quality music on a physical carrier such as vinyl or CD which is often cheaper! Bizarre...

Books will go the same way while people are more concerned with impressing their mates by having 10'000 'books' on their e-reader than they are by the actual content of the book.

As Paul Weller said, "the public gets what the public wants".

Andy-Apache wrote:
It's a shame people are prepared to accept low quality, low bitrate 'virtual' music these days, to play on their low quality reproduction phones and mp3 players, rather than high quality music on a physical carrier such as vinyl or CD which is often cheaper! Bizarre... Books will go the same way while people are more concerned with impressing their mates by having 10'000 'books' on their e-reader than they are by the actual content of the book. As Paul Weller said, "the public gets what the public wants".

and the public probably cant tell the difference between low bit-rate digital encodings and CDs or vinyl. I know i can't!

Very sad. To a certain extent, it is a question of market forces and technology. The likes of Amazon, Lovefilm, iTunes etc have killed the need for the products HMV sold.

HMV could have helped themselves, by having an online presence. And that Worcester store was a bit of a nightmare to visit, very cramped.

And it is a pity that Amazon etc set up here but were allowed for years under Labour to get away with paying so little tax.

The tax arrangements clearly did help the likes of Amazon and iTunes, but in the end, it's technology, and their inability to adapt to it, that did for HMV (and Jessops).

Pity the staff are the ones that will pay the price.

another few thousand jobs gone! added to the those lost in the police,fire services, Honda, Jessops and Play.com in the last week, and yet according to the government we are on the up ?!

induby - don't forget the jobs created by the like of Jaguar.

I don't think the government is being massively over-optimistic, and it is dealing with a mess left by Labour. Also look around Europe...things aren't looking to good in general.

The current government is anything but perfect, but it inherited debt, a bloated public sector, and a job market wrecked by mass immigration. Those HMV staff laid off will find getting a new job all the more difficult as they will find many places already taken by immigrants.

And HMV's problems are due largely to technology and market forces. Shops find it hard to compete with the internet. And HMV failed to develop an internet presence.

The 800 jobs created by JLR this week offset the 800 jobs Honda are cutting.

Interesting. Honda sales, largely EU dependent. Not going too well, just like many European car companies. Ford is closing in Belgium. Peugeot is closing factories in France.

Jaguar, Indian-owned, and selling largely outside the EU, is doing fine.

There is economic life beyond the EU.

More Tea Vicar wrote:
induby - don't forget the jobs created by the like of Jaguar.

I don't think the government is being massively over-optimistic, and it is dealing with a mess left by Labour. Also look around Europe...things aren't looking to good in general.

The current government is anything but perfect, but it inherited debt, a bloated public sector, and a job market wrecked by mass immigration. Those HMV staff laid off will find getting a new job all the more difficult as they will find many places already taken by immigrants.

And HMV's problems are due largely to technology and market forces. Shops find it hard to compete with the internet. And HMV failed to develop an internet presence.

The public sector is still bloated, overstaffed and inefficient and yet its the private sector that suffers, resulting in thousands of job loses. And Worcestershire county council has over 10,000 staff.

Redhillman wrote:

More Tea Vicar wrote:
induby - don't forget the jobs created by the like of Jaguar.

I don't think the government is being massively over-optimistic, and it is dealing with a mess left by Labour. Also look around Europe...things aren't looking to good in general.

The current government is anything but perfect, but it inherited debt, a bloated public sector, and a job market wrecked by mass immigration. Those HMV staff laid off will find getting a new job all the more difficult as they will find many places already taken by immigrants.

And HMV's problems are due largely to technology and market forces. Shops find it hard to compete with the internet. And HMV failed to develop an internet presence.

The public sector is still bloated, overstaffed and inefficient and yet its the private sector that suffers, resulting in thousands of job loses. And Worcestershire county council has over 10,000 staff.

It didn't take long for the council to be included and made out to be the bad guys. I suppose many will blame them for HMV's predicament.

It's not only digital downloads and live streaming that has contributed to HMV's demise. CDs, DVDs, computer games etc were generally cheaper online, while making such purchases did not require anyone to really go in store as it's not as if you needed to 'try' or see them unlike clothes. We have all chosen to shop online for many things, and when it's cheaper, who can blame us. The question is, should we have a morale obligation to shop in the High Street or should we watch the pennies and look at the benefits and convenience of buying some products online?

Don't get me wrong, I'm sorry to see what's happening to HMV and I feel sorry for the staff affected.

MulsanneChap wrote:

Redhillman wrote:

More Tea Vicar wrote:
induby - don't forget the jobs created by the like of Jaguar.

I don't think the government is being massively over-optimistic, and it is dealing with a mess left by Labour. Also look around Europe...things aren't looking to good in general.

The current government is anything but perfect, but it inherited debt, a bloated public sector, and a job market wrecked by mass immigration. Those HMV staff laid off will find getting a new job all the more difficult as they will find many places already taken by immigrants.

And HMV's problems are due largely to technology and market forces. Shops find it hard to compete with the internet. And HMV failed to develop an internet presence.

The public sector is still bloated, overstaffed and inefficient and yet its the private sector that suffers, resulting in thousands of job loses. And Worcestershire county council has over 10,000 staff.

It didn't take long for the council to be included and made out to be the bad guys. I suppose many will blame them for HMV's predicament.

It's all the Highways Department's fault - I thought everyone knew that.

MulsanneChap wrote:

Redhillman wrote:

More Tea Vicar wrote:
induby - don't forget the jobs created by the like of Jaguar.

I don't think the government is being massively over-optimistic, and it is dealing with a mess left by Labour. Also look around Europe...things aren't looking to good in general.

The current government is anything but perfect, but it inherited debt, a bloated public sector, and a job market wrecked by mass immigration. Those HMV staff laid off will find getting a new job all the more difficult as they will find many places already taken by immigrants.

And HMV's problems are due largely to technology and market forces. Shops find it hard to compete with the internet. And HMV failed to develop an internet presence.

The public sector is still bloated, overstaffed and inefficient and yet its the private sector that suffers, resulting in thousands of job loses. And Worcestershire county council has over 10,000 staff.

It didn't take long for the council to be included and made out to be the bad guys. I suppose many will blame them for HMV's predicament.

In fairness, the public sector's failings, and failure to take responsibility, are a feature of UK life.

I know, I know, bankers etc...we've all heard it before.

But you see the public sector fail repeatedly, often lethally, for example in the NHS, and no one seems to take responsibility or face consequences, despite often obscene salaries.

Yet the HMV and Metal Box staff seem to have done no one any harm, or even done a bad job, yet there they are...

That said, when the Council does get it right, it rarely gets mentioned, and it's hard to see what the public sector had to do with HMV's fate.

MulsanneChap wrote:

Redhillman wrote:

More Tea Vicar wrote: induby - don't forget the jobs created by the like of Jaguar. I don't think the government is being massively over-optimistic, and it is dealing with a mess left by Labour. Also look around Europe...things aren't looking to good in general. The current government is anything but perfect, but it inherited debt, a bloated public sector, and a job market wrecked by mass immigration. Those HMV staff laid off will find getting a new job all the more difficult as they will find many places already taken by immigrants. And HMV's problems are due largely to technology and market forces. Shops find it hard to compete with the internet. And HMV failed to develop an internet presence.

The public sector is still bloated, overstaffed and inefficient and yet its the private sector that suffers, resulting in thousands of job loses. And Worcestershire county council has over 10,000 staff.

It didn't take long for the council to be included and made out to be the bad guys. I suppose many will blame them for HMV's predicament.

And don't forget about all the immigrants either.

pinkfluff wrote:

MulsanneChap wrote:

Redhillman wrote:

More Tea Vicar wrote: induby - don't forget the jobs created by the like of Jaguar. I don't think the government is being massively over-optimistic, and it is dealing with a mess left by Labour. Also look around Europe...things aren't looking to good in general. The current government is anything but perfect, but it inherited debt, a bloated public sector, and a job market wrecked by mass immigration. Those HMV staff laid off will find getting a new job all the more difficult as they will find many places already taken by immigrants. And HMV's problems are due largely to technology and market forces. Shops find it hard to compete with the internet. And HMV failed to develop an internet presence.

The public sector is still bloated, overstaffed and inefficient and yet its the private sector that suffers, resulting in thousands of job loses. And Worcestershire county council has over 10,000 staff.

It didn't take long for the council to be included and made out to be the bad guys. I suppose many will blame them for HMV's predicament.

And don't forget about all the immigrants either.

Actually, don't.

Hard to see that immigrants had much of a role in HMV's predicament. But mass immigration was encouraged so as to increase the supply, and thereby lower the cost of, labour.

Great for certain employers - the kind the left normally loves to hate. Not so brilliant for the average British worker, who's found their wages lower, and jobs harder to come by, than they should or would have been.

The ex-HMV employees will find their job search all the harder. There are reasons why immigration is massively unpopular, and it's based on experience, not fear of the unknown.

As is so often the case, the plebs knew best....