10,000 new jobs planned by pubco Wetherspoon

Published on Tuesday 1 December 2009 20:39

PUBS chain JD Wetherspoon is to create some 10,000 jobs after outlining a five-year plan to open 250 pubs across Britain.

A number of locations have already been identified, including Livingston, Liverpool and Newcastle, as part of the expansion, which will see the group invest 250 million.

Wetherspoon currently employs about 21,000 people and has 743 pubs, including 40-plus sites north of the Border. A spokesman said the Scottish pubs had been "performing extremely well" and there was "no question that a decent number (of the new sites] would be in Scotland".

The new roles will cover 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."

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

In September, it reported underlying pre-tax profits up 13.6 per cent to 66.2m and sales of 955.1m in the year to 26 July – a record since the firm was incorporated in 1983.

The group said it had taken 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".