Media headlines have focused on job losses in hospitality reported by the Office for National Statistics. The job losses are put down to a rise in national insurance rates and the minimum wage.
Certainly the hospitality industry has issues that the Government should be addressing, for example the post pandemic environment and business rates and perhaps in particular the difference in tax between supermarket drinks and those sold in pubs.
As often hospitality bosses focus on increasing wage costs while complaining that due to a cost of living crisis people can’t afford to drink in pubs. Do they ever wonder if these two things might be linked?
Unite Hospitality which organises pub and brewery workers is spot on with its statement below
Figures released today by the ONS show that 54% of the 164k job losses since October last year were in hospitality — a sector that bosses have built on poverty pay & insecurity. We hear employers say ‘labour costs are too high.’ But labour isn’t a cost — it’s the people who keep the doors open. If you can’t pay staff a wage they can live on, then something is seriously wrong with your business model — and perhaps, you shouldn’t be in business. The most effective way to defend yourself from mass job losses and poor pay and conditions is to collectively bargain. Just ask
@Village_Hotels strikers: they won a 10% rise + end to zero-hour contracts by unionising!
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