10,000 new pub jobs at JD Wetherspoon

Pub operator JD Wetherspoon plans to create 10,000 jobs over the next five years with the opening of 250 new pubs.

It is to invest £250m on the new outlets over the five year period. The company currently operates 743 pubs across the UK.

The new pubs will be located across the UK, including Sheffield, Livingston, Leominster, Otley, New Malden, Liverpool, Haverfordwest and Newcastle. 

Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin said: "We only have 743 pubs compared to, say, Mitchells & Butlers which has 2,000.

"We opened 39 pubs this year and there will be at least that this year — and there will be a little bit of acceleration as the years go by.

"We'll be looking at colonising the suburbs and adding extra sites in town and city centres — we traded for our first 13 years in the suburbs of London before we moved into town and city centres.

"Take Exeter — where I live — we opened two pubs in the city centre and opened one in the suburbs two or three months ago, which is trading in line with sites of a comparable size in the centre.

"The new pubs will be a mixture of discarded sites and disused unlicensed premises.

"The recession exposes weaknesses, as Warren Buffet says, 'When the tide goes out you see who has been swimming naked'."

The Wetherspoon expansion plan mirrors its performance in the last recession when it accelerated openings in the mid-1990s as property prices remained weak.

New openings at Wetherspoon reduced to a handful a few years ago as the property prices reached their height in the period between 2004 and 2007.

Martin added: "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."