Closures were down 38.8% compared with 2022 while redundancies fell 21.3%, the Centre for Retail Research said.
But CRR boss Joshua Bamfield highlighted shops’ increasing costs, staff shortages and falling demand.
He said: “This ‘improvement’ is probably best viewed as a trend that is ‘less bad’ rather than ‘good’.”
Some 119,405 jobs and 10,494 shops were lost, including 400 Wilko stores with 12,000 posts.
Rick Smith, boss of insolvency firm Forbes Burton, said many “sites are no longer viable after the e-commerce boom”.
He added: “Only those with the deepest pockets or the brightest ideas will survive.”
The Daily Express Save Our High Street crusade is campaigning to save town centres.
