Whitbread, the company that lets you sleep in a Premier Inn for a modest fee, has announced it will cut 3,800 jobs across the UK and Ireland as part of a five-year plan to save £250m and give its restaurants a serious rethink.
The Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire-based firm also plans to slash £1bn from its capital building programme and replace restaurants at 197 hotels with an “integrated food and drink model,” which is corporate-speak for “we think you’d rather eat in the lobby than in a separate room.”
Chief executive Dominic Paul cited increased costs from business rates and national insurance as the reason for the changes, noting, “We’ve looked hard at the options open to us to maximise value creation over the medium and long-term.” Translation: We’re cutting costs because the government made things expensive.
Whitbread, which employs 30,000 people, said the plans are subject to a staff consultation and it hopes to retain a “significant proportion” of affected workers through redeployment - because nothing softens the blow of losing your job like being offered a different one in a different role.
The company already made 88 roles redundant last year when it moved a call centre to Egypt and cut 1,500 jobs in 2024. This latest round comes after Whitbread reported a pre-tax profit of £298m for the year to 26 February, which was 19% lower than the year before - proof that even a bed-and-breakfast empire can have bad dreams.