Burberry today became the latest high fashion brand to feel the pinch, announcing the loss of 290 jobs in the UK and the closure of a sewing facility in Rotherham, South Yorkshire.

There will be another 250 redundancies at its Spanish operations. Production in the UK will from now on be concentrated on the group's other factory at Castleford, Yorkshire, which makes the well-known trenchcoats.

The group announced a 9 per cent rise in revenues in the third quarter to end-December, but admitted this was partly because of discounting, especially in December, which hit gross margins but managed to clear out excess stock at a profit.

Several other upmarket fashion brands have been hit by the recession as even wealthy consumers stay away from the shops. Yesterday, Richemont, which owns brands such as Cartier and Richemont, said sales in the Americas, where it sells most of its products, were down by more than a quarter in the last three months of last year.

The job losses at Burberry are part of a programme to cut costs by £50 million across the group. In November, Burberry announced cost cutting of up to £20 million but no actual redundancies then. As well as the Yorkshire closure, an underperforming business in Spain which manufactures for that market will also be shut down.

The sewing work, which is currently done by 170 people in Rotherham, will transfer to the Castleford factory. Burberry currently employs about 2,000 people in the UK and 1,300 in Spain.

Today's job cuts add to the growing tally of redudancies at British companies.

Last week alone, UK businesses announced 8,150 job cuts across a range of sectors and new employment figures are due out this week that are expected to show a further 80,000 people began claiming jobless benefits in December, up from 75,500 in November.

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