Cafes and bars could see 3.2m jobs axed
HOSPITALITY chiefs issued a dire warning about the future of many businesses last night after doctors advised that the reopening of pubs and restaurants should be pushed back to May.
Industry leaders said that just one in five restaurants, pubs and bars had enough cash to get through beyond March.
It came after Sage scientists who advise the Government warned that the sector would have to stay closed until at least May to limit the spread of coronavirus.
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, told Radio 4’s The World At One that if the reopening of the sector was delayed until May, 3.2million could lose their jobs.
‘Just one in five hospitality businesses are confident that they will have enough cash to get through beyond March,’ she said. ‘There is no way that businesses will be able to survive until May with no revenues coming in for seven months.
‘It’s a cash burn of half a billion pounds to keep the sector closed each and every month. If we are forced to wait for a longer period then unfortunately there will be little left of the hospitality sector and the 3.2million people who work in it to reopen at that point in May.’
She said she hoped that with the vaccination programme under way, there would be a ‘pathway’ to the lifting of restrictions.
‘Otherwise I think you’ve got a danger that you have an impact on peoples’ mental health and wellbeing and also their economic health and well-being,’ she said.
If the sector is closed until May, she warned, there would need to be a ‘significant additional injection of cash support from the Government because the support at the moment is just not sufficient to sustain and maintain businesses and jobs’.
Doctors warned restaurants would not be able to open until May because it would push up the R rate.
Dr Marc Baguelin of Imperial College London, who sits on the Sage committee, said: ‘We looked at partial reopening and the increase of the R number and found that it will generate an increase, the extent of which we don’t really know.
‘And if this was to happen earlier than May, it will generate a bump which is really bad ... at best you will carry on having a very unsustainable level of pressure on the NHS.’