Energy crisis could see 600,000 jobs lost

02-Sep-2022 - Last updated on 02-Sep-2022 at 10:15 GMT

Catastrophic position: Sacha Lord (pictured) requests urgent meeting with Chancellor as soaring energy costs predicted to see more than 600,000 job losses across the sector

Related tags Energy costs Sacha Lord Finance Legislation

Night-Time Economy Advisor for Manchester, Sacha Lord, has requested an urgent meeting with Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi MP as energy bills put sector's livelhood in “catastrophic position”.

According to Lord, some 619,000 jobs could be lost across the hospitality sector, which provides £12.1bn in wages and £23.4bn of Gross Value Added across the country according to Oxford Economics, without Government support this winter as energy costs continue to rocket.

Furthermore, a recent survey by The Morning Advertiser found 70% of pubs could face closure if they did not receive any backing.

Lord said: "We are now in a catastrophic position, bigger than which we experienced during the pandemic.

Very real danger

"We have already heard reports 7 out of ten pubs will close by winter, and if these forecasts are correct, we are looking at a loss of more than half a million jobs, including more than a quarter of a million young people who will fall into unemployment.

"These figures speak for themselves, and emphasise just how significant the sector is to the economic fabric of the UK.

“Hospitality is a livelihood for hundreds of thousands of families across the UK and without support, we are in very real danger of these livelihoods being stripped away and plunging hard working people into unaffordable circumstances."

Backbone of British industry

This comes as Zahawi recently refused a meeting with licensee of the Swan pub in Bampton, Devon, Paul Berry, following a letter to the Chancellor imploring him to meet with operators from the Top 50 Gastropubs list to discuss problems caused by soaring energy bills, but received a “weak” response.

The letter said: “What is happening is a big concern to us. We are seeing people’s electric bills going from £20,000 plus a year to some being quoted £100,000 a year.

“I appreciate you’re a very busy person, but we are the type of people that are the backbone of British industry. We are passionate about what we do. We have to work the number of hours we do with so little reward for it.

“A meeting would be so important to put over the points that are really important to us after Covid. We realise we had a lot of help, but to be quite honest, for some businesses, it never touched the sides.”