'Cruel & unnecessary' | Staff at owners of Premier Inn & Beefeater protest plans to cut 1,500 jobs, which could leave some staff homeless

Staff at the owners of Premier Inn & Beefeater have staged protests at the firm’s annual shareholder meeting over plans to cut 1,500 jobs - despite rising profits - in a move which could leave some on-site staff without a place to live...

Employees of Whitbread, which owns a number of other hospitality brands including Brewers Fayre, demonstrated outside the company’s AGM event in Dunstable earlier this week.

The company announced the mass job cuts in April 2024, the same month it revealed a 36% rise in profits to £561 million.

Figureheads at the Unite union - which represents hundreds of Whitbread workers but isn’t formally recognised by the company - say the company has failed to carry out the redundancy process in any “genuine or meaningful way” during its statutory 45-day consultation period. One employee has also claimed the company is 'drip-feeding' information about the job cuts, giving impacted staff little time to consider their futures.