New government announcements include a recognition that the tourism and hospitality sectors are massive employers in the UK and that they have been severely impacted by the pandemic.

Virtually all these sectors have had to close during the Covid-19 situation to protect public health.  It is estimated that some 80% of hospitality firms stopped trading in April and upwards of 1.4 million hospitality workers have been furloughed; this is the highest proportions of any sector.  QHR Solutions welcomes this recognition and the help that is being provided by the government to boost these businesses and their staff.

The key to helping these businesses recover is boosting the demand as businesses in this sector re-open so that employers have the confidence to protect jobs, bring back furloughed staff and rehire.  To encourage people to safely return to eating out the Government’s new ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ discount scheme will provide a 50% reduction for sit-down meals in cafes, restaurants and pubs across the UK from Monday to Wednesday every week throughout August 2020.

The VAT rate currently applied on most tourism and hospitality-related activities will be cut from 20% to 5%.  This will save households around £160 per year on average when they eat out and, together with the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme, will support over 2.4 million staff at over 150,000 businesses, helping them to reopen after the Covid-19 lockdown and to support the return of their staff.   As more people eat out and use cafes, restaurants and pubs business activity will start up and this will give these businesses confidence to go forward and recover.

As always QHR Solutions is happy to discuss any staffing issues you may have, please call us if we can help.  Happy eating out!