Premier Inn owner Whitbread to slash 6.000 jobs

Premier Inn owner Whitbread is looking to axe 6.000 jobs at Whitbread which includes restaurant chains Beefeater and Brewers Fayre, as well as hotels and restaurants - nearly one in five staff.

It hopes a 'significant proportion' of the job cuts will come via voluntary redundancies and reduced hours for some workers.

 Its CEO Alison Brittain said: "Our teams have worked very hard to reopen our hotels and restaurants and we are now firmly in the "restore" restore our approach "to the Covid 19 crisis.”

Whitbread said the plans come amid weak demand in the near to medium term, with the comprehensive government programme ending next month.

The job cuts are on top of cuts expected to cut HQs staff by as much as one fifth with around 150 positions affected.

In August hotels and restaurants gained momentum by staying and by promoting the "eat out to help out" initiative, yet hotel sales were still down 47.3% year-on-year, with overall sales in the UK including restaurants down 38.5% on a year ago.

Whitbread pointed to tighter government restraints on tackling a second wave of pandemic, saying it would "continue to closely monitor the situation"

Alison Brittain, CEO of Whitbread, said: "Our performance following the re-openings has been ahead of the market, however, it has been clear from the beginning of this crisis that even as restrictions are eased and hospitality businesses such as ours reopen their doors, that demand would be materially lower than last year's levels for a period of time.