More than a third of hospitality firms plan recruitment drive

While around a third of pub, bar, restaurant and hotel businesses planned hires according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and recruitment firm Adecco, healthcare, finance and insurance, education and ICT were the sectors with the strongest recruitment intentions. 

Overall, more than half (56%) of the 2,000 firms surveyed planned to take on new staff in the first three months of 2021.

The survey also found that the number of businesses planning to make redundancies in the first quarter of the year fell from 30% to 20%, versus the previous three-month period.

"Our findings suggest that unemployment may be close to peak and may even undershoot official forecasts, especially given the reported fall in the supply of overseas workers," CIPD’s Gerwyn Davies said.

The findings come after figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that hospitality was the hardest hit by redundancies in 2020​.

Hospitality hit 

In the region of 660,000 hospitality jobs​ were lost in 2020 according to the latest figures from sector software provider Fourth.

The huge cuts represent a 28% drop in overall hospitality staff headcount versus December 2019 according to Fourth – though pubs experienced the least negative impact with a year-on-year drop of 22%.

Companies such as brewing giant Heineken recently announced plans to cut 8,000 jobs – including 100 roles at its UK-based operation​ – while JD Wetherspoon and Whitbread have both announced redundancies since the turn of the year.

As reported by The Morning Advertiser (MA)​ on 15 January, the parent company of Beefeater, Brewers Fayre and Premier Inn, Whitbread, confirmed 1,500 job losses​ in a trading update – just over 4% of its 36,000 staff.

Less than a week later, announced that more than 300 staff​ had been made redundant across the operator’s airport sites and head office.