The suggestion that London has turned into a virtual ‘ghost town’ during the Olympics, with temporary workers who had been on standby now told they are not needed, appear to be over-exaggerated.

A report by journalist Patrick Kingsley in newspaper The Guardian this weekend stated: “At [retailer] H&M on Oxford Street, management planned to bring in extra workers for the Olympic period, but have since had to cancel their shifts. Over lunch at Byron, a new burger chain, I hear the same thing.”

Broader press coverage has repeatedly used the term ‘ghost town’, and it is expected that a report from the British Retail Consortium tomorrow will confirm a slowing in national retail sales in July.

However, H&M has told Recruiter that it has in fact “increased staffing levels in the West End and Central London stores for the Olympic period”.

Meanwhile Ed Fella, head of division at multi-sector recruiter Freedom Recruitment, which has both a temporary and permanent retail division, tells Recruiter that nearer the Olympic Park, “Stratford obviously has gone mental”.

He is more muted on the centre of town: “In terms of Oxford Street, Regent Street, the West End, we haven’t seen any huge uplift,” which he adds was “predictable”. Fella concludes: “I think people had contingency plans in place and budgets should they have needed more headcount.”

H&M’s spokesperson adds that such decisions are indeed made on an ongoing basis, saying: “We are reviewing the customer flow as well as location and the impact of the Olympic events daily, and deploy our staff accordingly. Our aim is to offer our customers really good service in an excellent shopping environment.”

Meanwhile Steven Kirkpatrick, managing director at Adecco UK comments that broadly, general staffing levels “have taken a knock. We believe the reason behind this is that businesses put plans on hold for the Olympics, but will be looking to pick up in September when the perceived impact of the Games should have passed”.

Byron said it was unable to provide comment.