Wetherspoon toast to job rise
PUBS chain JD Wetherspoon is to open 200 new sites and create 15,000 jobs over the next five years, it announced yesterday.
JD Wetherspoon will create 15,000 new jobs
The company is to invest more than £400million developing new pubs across the UK and Ireland.
This will be a welcome fillip for an industry battling against a rising number of pub closures because of increased competition from supermarkets and the giant pub conglomerates selling off unprofitable outlets.
J D Wetherspoons Craft Beer Launch 2014
We are looking forward to opening the new pubs, many of which will be in areas where Wetherspoon is not yet represented. We are proud to be creating so many new jobs
Wetherspoon operates 931 pubs and employs more than 34,000 staff.
The jobs will be spread across the 200 new pubs, together with extra staff recruited for existing pubs and head office.
They will include management roles as well as jobs for bar, kitchen and front of house staff.
Founding chairman Tim Martin said: "We are looking forward to opening the new pubs, many of which will be in areas where Wetherspoon is not yet represented. We are proud to be creating so many new jobs.
"Wetherspoon paid more than £600million in taxes in our last financial year and this will rise to approximately £1billion in the course of the next five years."