An influential group of retailers including M&S and Tesco has warned the Treasury at least 300,000 retail jobs would disappear by 2030 due to unsustainable cost hikes this year.

The newly revamped Retail Jobs Alliance (RJA) has warned the government that retailers are facing “a perfect storm” of additional costs from this April. It said a higher National Insurance bill, a new recycling tax and higher business rates means they expect one in 10 shop floor workers to leave retail by 2028.

The RJA, which employs just under a third of those working in the sector, equal to almost one million people, says the business rate plans threatened to hamper retail investment in the UK, lead to store closures and ultimately mean more workers leave the sector.

It added that thousands of stores were at risk of a heavy tax blow under the changes, saying that much of the impact was likely to be felt in more impoverished communities.

The body is calling for the government to give stores an exemption from the higher rate business rates multiplier, which is applied to the rateable value of properties to calculate the tax due.

A spokesman for the RJA said: “This change would provide much-needed relief for at-risk stores, enabling them to reinvest in their businesses, retain staff, and grow their footprint on the high street.”

The warning follows M&S chief executive Stuart Machin saying over the weekend that “retail is being raided like a piggy bank and it’s unacceptable”.

Simon Roberts, Sainsbury’s chief executive, also said the government needed to be careful over reforms: “There are big parts of the UK where the supermarket plays a fundamental role at the heart of a community, and we need to make sure that the reform of business rates makes the ongoing viability of those locations really clear.”

Last month, Tesco CEO Ken Murphy said that the business rate changes put big town centre stores at risk, despite them being “often critical to maintaining the integrity of that high street. The risk is that more and more of those large retail sites become unviable.”

However, a Treasury spokesman said: “We delivered a once-in-a-Parliament Budget to wipe the slate clean. Now we are focused on going further and faster to kickstart economic growth so working people have more money in their pockets.

“We’re levelling the playing field for high street businesses by permanently cutting business rates and removing the £110,000 cap for over 280,000 retail, hospitality and leisure business properties, while also capping corporation tax.”