Pub chain set to create 10,000 new jobs

Dec 2 2009 By The Journal

PUB group Wetherspoon is to create 10,000 jobs over the next five years with the opening of 250 new pubs, including one in Newcastle.

The business, which currently employs 21,000 people and has 743 pubs across the UK, is to invest £250m in the new outlets over the period.

It expects to open new pubs in locations including Sheffield, Livingston, Leominster, Otley, New Malden, Liverpool, Haverfordwest and Newcastle. The roles include management positions, as well as 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."

Wetherspoon opened its first pub in December 1979.

In September it hailed its best annual results after the company went back to basics to ride out the recession.

It reported underlying pre-tax profits up 13.6% to £66.2m and sales of £955.1 million in the year to July 26 – a record since the firm was incorporated in 1983, according to Wetherspoon.

The chain said it took lessons from the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s to combat tough trading conditions, "concentrating on the key ingredients of standard, service, staff training and incentives".

Wetherspoon opened 39 pubs in the last financial year and said in September that it expected to open a similar number in the current financial year.

"Our pubs are extremely popular and we wish to build on their success by opening more," said Wetherspoon’s chairman Tim Martin.

He said that recessions "can be a good time to expand" because property prices fall. "We slowed down our rate of expansion a few years back as we felt that property prices were at an unsustainable level. Now that they’ve dropped, it does make it easier," he added.

This is the third recession it has experienced in its 30 years of trading. Pubs are closing at a rate of 52 a week according to the British Beer & Pub Association.