Highstreet travel shop Thomas Cook has announced it is to cut thousands of jobs in Britain.

In a statement on Wednesday (6 March), the company explained plans to close almost 200 shops across the UK. Thomas Cook announced last year it had spent hundreds of millions of pounds more than it had gained in profits.

Peter Fankhauser, the UK boss of Thomas Cook, told journalists that "it is never easy to make decisions that impact directly on our people" but that costs must be kept "as low as possible". "Even after these changes we will still have one of the largest retail networks in UK travel," he added.

Lots of highstreet shops have been struggling to make money, as their customers by less of their products and services. Shops like HMV and Blockbuster recently ran into trouble. This sort of problem is common when a country's economy suffers.

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