New jobs blow at Pizza Express

PIZZA Express announced 1,300 more job cuts yesterday blaming the ‘nightmare’ of lockdown restrictions.

It axed 1,100 jobs in August, when it closed 73 of its 370 restaurants.

A quarter of its workforce has now been made redundant in the pandemic. The number of customers has collapsed since the end of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, and working from home has hit city centre restaurants hard.

The company, which was struggling under a £1.1billion debt before the virus struck, said new measures preventing households from mixing indoors had forced the decision. An insider said: ‘The impact of Tier 2 and 3 restrictions on top of social distancing is just a nightmare.’