According to Sky News, as the company grapples with the unfolding impact of a cyberattack on Britain's best-known retailer, roughly 200 people who had been due to undertake shift work at M&S’s Castle Donington clothing and homewares logistics centre in the East Midlands have been told not to come in amid the escalating crisis.

Agency staff make up about 20% of Castle Donington’s workforce, according to a source close to M&S, Sky News said. 

The retailer’s own employees who work at the site have been told to come in as usual, the source added. “There is work for them to do,” they said.

M&S disclosed last week that it was suspending online orders as a result of the cyberattack but has provided few other details about the nature and extent of the incident. 

Operations at M&S forecourt shops appeared to have experienced some disruption over the past weekend. Yellow labels placed on food packages generally reflect reduced price items but yesterday [Sunday, 27 April 2025] the yellow labels on packages could not be labelled or sold with a reduced price because of the ongoing cyberattack issues, staff said.

In its latest update to investors, the company said on Friday that its product range was “available to browse online, and our stores remain open and ready to welcome and serve customers”.

“We continue to manage the incident proactively and the M&S team – supported by leading experts – is working extremely hard to restore online operations and continue to serve customers well,” it added.

It was unclear today [28 April 2025] how long the disruption to M&S’s e-commerce operations would last, although retail executives said the cyberattack was “extensive” and that it could take the company some time to fully resolve its impact.

Shares in M&S slid a further 2.4% on Monday morning, following a sharp fall last week, as investors reacted to the absence of positive news about the incident.

M&S declined to comment further.

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