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One of Britain’s largest pub operators is preparing to close dozens of venues and eliminate hundreds of jobs following a slump in trade exacerbated by the government’s 10pm hotel industry curfew.
Sky News learned that Greene King started a consultation with 800 employees on a layoff process on Wednesday.
Sources close to the company, which owns nearly 1,700 managed bars and 1,000 rented venues in Britain, said it would seek to reassign affected staff whenever possible despite the continuation. COVID-19 crisis.
Table service at Fort St George in Cambridge
In total, 79 of Greene King’s pubs and restaurants will close, and about a third of the closures are expected to be permanent.
The layoffs represent a small fraction of Greene King’s 38,000-employee workforce, but underscore employers’ anxiety as the government’s leave plan draws to a close.
The latest round of cuts in the hotel sector underscores the enormous financial cost being charged in an industry that is among Britain’s largest employers.
Some of the country’s best-known restaurant chains have already been forced into insolvency proceedings since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, while the UK Hospitality industry association has predicted that hundreds of thousands of jobs will disappear before Christmas without additional government support.
Greene King’s location closures include 11 Loch Fyne restaurants targeted several days ago, while other pub groups, including Young’s and Fullers, are also in the process of eliminating a substantial number of jobs.
Greene King hopes to redistribute much of the affected staff
In a recent statement, Nick Mackenzie, CEO of Greene King, said: “The industry is still grappling with the devastating aftermath of the national shutdown and the cumulative effect of the new restrictions, combined with the distinction of pubs, means that the measures announced by the chancellor don’t go far enough, especially for the city center pubs full of drinks.
“With figures from Public Health England showing that only 5% of all outbreaks are related to hospitality, it appears that pubs are being unfairly targeted when there is little evidence that they allow the spread of Covid-19.”
A Greene King spokesperson declined to comment on the termination inquiry.
