Pizza Express to cut another 1,300 jobs

Pizza Express is to slash a further 1,300 jobs from its workforce as increased government restrictions hammer demand at its city centre restaurants.

It comes just weeks after the chain revealed it would shut 73 restaurants, putting up to 1,100 roles at risk.

Pizza Express blamed the latest job cuts on recent restrictions imposed on the hospitality sector such as the 10pm curfew and ban on households mixing indoors in higher-risk areas of the country. It said footfall at its sites had fallen since September as a result.

While some restaurants in out-of-town and suburban locations were trading well, the company said city centre venues had been hit particularly hard.

The cuts are expected to affect all Pizza Express sites through a combination of voluntary and compulsory redundancies, although no UK restaurant closures have been proposed in the latest redundancy programme.

The group said the decision would allow it to continue trading through the winter as it warned footfall will continue to suffer in the coming months.

Zoe Bowley, managing director at PizzaExpress, said: “Our aim throughout these extremely challenging times has been to keep our team members and customers safe and to retain jobs for as long as possible.

“Unfortunately, the recent increase in Covid-19 cases is again causing footfall to decline across the UK. As this is expected to continue for some months, we sadly need to make changes that will impact more of our team members.

"We believe that this difficult decision will give us more resilience through the next six months and help us to continue serving our customers in our restaurants and at home in the years ahead.”