Industry body UKHospitality has written to the government calling for this year’s Budget to reverse the hospitality job losses of the last few months.
It follows figures released over the weekend that show between October 2024 and May 2025, the sector lost 69,000 jobs. In the same period the previous year, hospitality created an additional 18,000 jobs.
With job losses in the sector three times higher than the rest of the economy since October 2024, UKHospitality has written a letter to the Prime Minister calling for the Government to fix NICs to boost jobs by extending the existing exemptions to include both young people and people moving from welfare to work.
In the run-up to the Budget, UKHospitality is also calling for the Government to lower business rates to revive high streets by introducing the maximum discount of 20p for hospitality businesses as part of the promised business rates reform. In addition, it wants to see VAT cut on hospitality to drive investment. This, it says, would follow the majority of European rival nations by reducing VAT on the sector.
Speaking about the proposals, Kate Nicholls, chair of UKHospitality, said: “In the years following the financial crisis we created one in five net new jobs and today employ 3.5 million people. The Government needs sectors like hospitality to create jobs and meet their ambition to get more people back into work.
“We have a proven track record of being able to deliver those jobs in every part of the country and for people from all backgrounds.
“The NICs change was socially regressive and had a disproportionate effect on entry level jobs. Without a change of tack from the government we could be looking at over 150,000 fewer workers in hospitality, when we should be bringing people into the jobs market.
“The economy needs jobs. Hospitality creates them. But we are being taxed out.”
