JD Wetherspoon is chaired by Tim Martin
(Picture: PA Wire)Pub giant JD Wetherspoon has revealed plans to create 20,000 jobs over a decade, as part of a big investment project.
The FTSE 250 firm which is chaired by Tim Martin and has 871 pubs, gave the update ahead of the industry being able to start reopening in just under two weeks from the latest lockdown.
Hospitality firms can start serving outdoors from April 12 and indoors the following month. Wetherspoon said it has a initial pipeline of 75 projects, 18 of which are new sites and 57 that are extensions and upgrades to existing pubs.
It is keen to start work on those projects “within weeks” of reopening fully. It estimates investing an initial £145 million on expansion work, and creating 2,000 new jobs in the process.
Once the 75 projects are done, Wetherspoon anticipates investing an additional £750 million to open 15 new pubs and enlarging 50 existing pubs each year for ten years.
That is expected to result in 20,000 new jobs over a decade. That is on top of the initial 2000 new roles created from the first pipeline of projects starting this year.
Martin said the pub group is “committed to our long-term investment and job creation programme over the next decade”.
But he warned: “However, the investment is conditional on the UK opening back up again on a long-term basis, with no further lockdowns or the constant changing of rules.”
