Wetherspoon to create 10,000 new jobs
Wetherspoon to create 10,000 new jobs
Tuesday, 01, Dec 2009 10:22
By Maria Tonelli.
Pub chain JD Wetherspoon plans to create an extra 10,000 jobs by opening 250 new pubs across the UK over the next five years.
It will spend £250 million on the new outlets in locations including Liverpool, Newcastle, New Malden, Leominster, Livingston, Otley and Sheffield.
The company already employs 21,000 staff and has 743 pubs in the UK. The new roles will include management positions as well as positions for bar and kitchen staff.
Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin said: "Our pubs are extremely popular and we wish to build on their success by opening more.
"I am confident that the new pubs will be an asset to their respective towns and cities."
The announcement comes days after the Beer and Pub Association reported that an average of 50 pubs a week in Britain are being forced to close.
The chain appears to be bucking the current economic trend and recently announced record sales in the year to the end of July.
The group saw increased takings of 1.2 per cent in the year to the end of July and reported
sales of £955.1 million during the same period - a record since the chain was incorporated in 1983.
Lessons from the recessions in the 1980s and 90s are behind this prosperity, according to the chain, by "concentrating on the key ingredients of standard, service, staff training and incentives."
Wetherspoon, which opened its first pub in 1979, opened 39 pubs in the last financial year and are expected to open a similar number in the current financial year.