Restaurant giants lay off employees – E24

– Naturally, we confirm that we have laid off a lot and most likely we will have to lay off more, but the degree of the number of layoffs will vary from city to city and from day to day, writes Dan Robert Halshamn of the company that owns Egon, Norrein Group, in an SMS. .

Norrein as has more than 50 restaurants and hotels.

Turn off a second time

These are dark times for the restaurant industry and nightlife. In some municipalities, the catering industry will experience a total or partial discontinuation of drinking starting Monday. Furthermore, the government and health authorities have strongly encouraged people to stay home as long as possible.

– Now we are working to adapt to the situation, but unfortunately we do not have concrete information to come out since the development is very different from one day to the next and from one city to another. Sales development and the degree of layoffs are constantly changing, says Halshamn.

It has 4,000 employees: – You can fire a good deal

Egon is far from alone on layoffs in light of the new infection measures. At the restaurant group Umoe Restaurants, which is behind, among others, TGI Friday’s, Starbucks, Peppes Pizza and La Baguette in Norway, the layoffs will begin shortly.

– We have sent notices to all departments and parts of the operating apparatus in the chains. We watch development day by day and we still don’t know how many will be laid off, says Espen Hoff at Umoe Restaurants.

– But we have more than 4,000 employees. A good number of them can be fired, he says.

During our closing, the restaurant group laid off more than 3,000 employees.

– We are in better shape now than in March and April. We are more robust and have more “take away” and “drive through”, which collects some of the revenue drop, says Hoff.

Trønder Group continues

Trønderske Bitastad has, among other things, Big Bite, Sot Burger and Bar, Jordbærpikene coffee chain and Sabrura sushi chain. Bitastad CEO Bjørn Vidar Tessem expects the group to start laying off employees in the coming days.

– Some franchisees have already sent termination notices. On Thursday and Friday we had a 30 percent drop in billing and on Saturday the drop was even greater. If this continues for a longer period of time, the measures and layoffs will be extensive across the group, Tessem says.

Only on the weekend do you know how extensive the layoffs will be in the first place.

– Now we have created our emergency preparedness group and a new evaluation of the measures that we will take based on the development of this weekend will be carried out. The measures are adapted to the decrease in turnover and its duration, says Tessem.

Urgent meeting Friday

On Friday, Trade and Industry Minister Iselin Nybø (V) summoned the parties in working life to what she describes as an emergency meeting. NHO, LO, the Norwegian Shipowners Association, Virke and the Minister of Finance attended the meeting, which was convened to follow up on the new restrictions imposed on the government.

– These are measures that will unfortunately affect companies and businesses. Therefore, we are considering proposing more measures to compensate the business community soon and will provide more information on this next week, Nybø said.

NHO Director Ole Erik Almlid believes that the situation is very dire for the business community and that companies must save themselves so as not to increase unemployment.

– There is frustration and despair in Norwegian business, Almlid tells E24.

He says that companies have respect for the measures that have been put in place to limit infection in society, but believes that companies should be compensated when new measures emerge.

– The government must go out into the field

In the government’s compensation plan, which was unveiled in October, caterers had to be able to point to a 40 percent or more drop in turnover in order to qualify for grants.

In the general compensation plan for businesses and industries, the corresponding threshold was 30 percent. By raising the threshold a little, the plan will target the most affected companies to a greater extent, said the Minister of Trade and Industry in the introduction.

Tessem, from the Bitastad Group, says he is looking forward to the support schemes the government will propose.

– We are confident that the authorities will find the necessary measures to stop the infection. Now it is important that the measures proposed by the authorities go hand in hand with support schemes. Here, the government must come up with good plans for damaged industries quickly, he says.

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