Burger King could permanently close one in 10 of its 530 UK branches with loss of up to 1,600 jobs

Burger King UK’s boss has warned that more than 50 of its 530 UK branches could shut, putting up to 1,600 jobs at risk following similar cuts at other chains such as Pret a Manger and Upper Crust. 

More than 12,000 job losses were announced at the start of July at various restaurants, shops and businesses, including up to 1,330 at Pret a Manger, 5,000 at Upper Crust and 900 at management consultancy firm Accenture.

Casual Dining Group entered administration last week, costing 1,900 jobs at Bella Italia, Cafe Rouge  and Las Iguanas.

With workers either furloughed or based remotely, fast food chains are losing out on office trade, while high street chains have suffered after months of lockdown. 

Burger King, which employs around 16,500 people in the UK, has only reopened about 370 of its 530 UK stores have reopened since the nation went into lockdown. 

Chief executive Alasdair Murdoch told the BBC’s Newscast the economic damage stemming from the crisis could ultimately force the company to permanently close up to 10% of its stores.

He told Newscast: ‘We don’t want to lose any (jobs). We try very hard not to, but one’s got to assume somewhere between 5% and 10% of the restaurants might not be able to survive.

‘It’s not just us – I think this applies to everyone out there in our industry.’

He added: ‘We’re in a slightly better situation than others, the classic in town high street restaurants, they’re really struggling, we haven’t opened all of those. 

‘We don’t expect to get all of those open any time soon but we have a significant chunk. Those numbers are a long way down.’

Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Wednesday unveiled a £30 billion support package to help boost the nation’s economic recovery, which included plans to subsidise restaurant bills throughout August to encourage people to dine out.

On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in August, customers will be able to claim the reduction, up to a maximum of £10 per head, at participating businesses which will claim the money back from the Treasury. 

Mr Sunak hailed the scheme as ‘creative’ solution to get the restaurant trade back on its feet. 

Chief executive Alasdair Murdoch described the scheme as an ‘innovative’ approach. 

However Mr Murdoch added that Government schemes do not do enough to compensate restaurants for the combination of fixed costs and lost sales throughout the pandemic, telling Newscast: ‘I don’t think you can ever get over the top of this problem.’ 

Last week it was announced up to 5,000 jobs are under threat at the group which owns Upper Crust and Caffe Ritazza following plunging passengers numbers at railway stations and airports amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The SSP group warned it expects to open only around a fifth of its sites in the UK by the autumn as travel is set to remain at very low levels amid the Covid-19 crisis.

It has launched a consultation on a restructure to ‘simplify and reshape’ the business in the face of the pandemic, which could lead to more than half of its 9,000-strong peak season workforce being axed. 

It came in a wave of job cuts including 1,700 in the UK at Airbus.

That followed previous announcements by airline firms including Ryanair, EasyJet and British Airways, where a combined total of nearly 20,000 jobs are at risk, with consultations currently underway.

Elsewhere Harrods has announced up to 700 jobs are at risk, Topshop owner Arcadia has made 500 head office redundancies and 1,000 at Bentley. 

Two in five of the entire workforce employed by DHL on the JLR logistics contract face losing their jobs, around 2,200 according to trade union Unite.

The cuts are set to fall on all of JLR’s major factories in the North West and the West Midlands including Castle Bromwich, Ellesmere Port, Halewood, Hams Hall, Midpoint, Solihull and Tyrefort, will be affected by the proposed redundancies.

Fashion giant H&M confirmed on Tuesday it was closing 170 of its stores, putting hundreds of positions at risk.