Sep 22, 2020
Premier Inn owner Whitbread plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs
Whitbread, the owner of Premier Inn, said it plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs as demand remained well below last year's levels. The FTSE 100 company said on Tuesday that despite an uptick in bookings over the summer, total sales of food and hotel rooms in the UK were almost 40 per cent lower than the same period in 2019. With the government's job support scheme running out in October, Whitbread said it had taken the "The very difficult decision" to enter into consultations that could result in up to 6,000 jobs being lost alongside a reduction in working hours. Whitbread, which has a largely domestic customer base, said that despite 98 per cent of its UK hotels being open by the end of August, sales in the three months up to that point were 75 per cent below last year's figures. In the six months to end of August, which includes the period of lockdown that started at the end of March in the UK, total sales for its whole estate - comprising hotels in the UK and Germany - were 77 per cent below last year's levels.
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