Whopping news: Burger King has become another casualty in the Covid job-loss trend

Burger King, Disney, Shell, Pizza Hut and even Greggs are the latest to announce cuts, Chris Blackhurst writes

The virus has taken a bite out of the fast-food chain’s profits ( 2016)

Each week, the news gets grimmer. Sorry but it does, for now anyway. This one saw Burger King flagging the closure of outlets, Disney laying off staff, Fuller’s saying its city centre pubs are suffering as officer workers remain at home, Greggs (even Greggs) warning of a redundancy programme. To them can be added Shell, TSB, Pizza Hut… the roll grows longer by the day, let alone the week.

Also stark was the YouGov poll finding that more than a third of UK employers will be making redundancies before the end of the year. Another gloomy survey found that more than a quarter of pubs, clubs and restaurants have not reopened since the imposition of lockdown.

The news is likely to become much worse, with the furlough scheme due to finish at the end of this month. Some sections of the media are labelling it a “jobs tsunami”. The Bank of England puts the crisis in a steadier fashion: UK unemployment may reach 7.5 per cent by the end of year, versus the current 4.1 per cent.

UK unemployment may reach 7.5 per cent by the end of year, versus the current 4.1 per cent

Meanwhile, the number of job vacancies is half of what it was in February. This is especially worrying because in past recessions there has been casual work available – typically in bars, restaurants, hospitality, which of course this time round are among the very places being hit the hardest.

So, enough of the downbeat, what’s to be done? Well, not a lot where this government is concerned. That is the most troublesome, make that depressing, development of all.

It’s clear that much of what is occurring is a major correction, that many pubs, shops, bank branches were always destined to disappear, that Covid-19 has merely hastened the inevitable. To them can be added traditional manufacturing plants that were grappling with ever more ferocious global competition. And I’ve not yet mentioned AI and the likely impact that will have.

This was staring us in the face long before the pandemic. But rather than come up with a plan, there was precious little sign from our leaders on both sides of the political spectrum of anything meaningful at all. 

There was almost a sense of letting people take their chance, allowing the market to inflict its own sort of treatment, that nothing could be done to stop the tide. Of initiatives to retrain and teach new skills, of investment projects involving the wholesale commitment of genuine new money, there were few – not ones that amounted to more than just talk or were seriously significant.

That looked as though it might change back in June, when Boris Johnson made his speech in Dudley in the West Midlands, invoking Franklin D Roosevelt. Our prime minister’s “New Deal” equivalent comprised £5bn of investment for schools, roads and other schemes, together with a relaxation of planning laws to encourage housebuilding.

It was something, but that was all. Despite the breathless headlines and reporting that Johnson intended to “build, build, build”, £5bn is nowhere near sufficient, not in this climate.

In truth, there was little difference in what he unveiled from the Tory manifesto. The outbreak had brought much of the spending forward. Since then, of course, things have got much worse.

This week, we heard Johnson talk about revamping and boosting adult education, equipping people with the tools required for the modern, reshaped economy. Again, all good.

Now may be the moment for the Tories not to put the brakes on ‘austerity’ as they have said they will but to go further and to reverse the policy

But again not enough, not to fight a wave that, thanks to the virus, is moving quicker and with greater force. Re-educating people will take time, years, to come to fruition.

There is a pressing requirement which is becoming ever urgent. If Johnson studies Roosevelt, he would see that the US president went far beyond what he has so far come up with.

Roosevelt was fighting the depression that was sweeping the US. He put his administration right in the centre of the battle, taking command and launching a whole raft of measures designed to get people working.

In effect, the White House became the country’s emergency stop-gap provider – Roosevelt even gave the government that title, calling it the “employer of last resort”. The country embarked on a huge infrastructure building programme – millions were found jobs this way.

It was just part of an effort that in ambition and scope was breathtaking. Something similar is required here – and if Johnson seriously wants to be compared with FDR, he should follow suit.

The government ought to step in and plug the holes that exist across all areas of the public service: health, community and social work. We desperately require more assistants in our schools, colleges, courts, police stations, prisons, care homes, social services, hospitals, nurseries, health centres, clinics… just as the list of companies shedding workers is long, so is the one for the places where once there were jobs or where people are needed.

Now may be the moment for the Tories not to put the brakes on austerity, as they have said they will, but to go further and to reverse the policy. And, as I’ve said, a £5bn building spend is nowhere near sufficient.

Conservatives may baulk at the idea, they may complain about the cost, but that total is nothing like as hard to bear as the social problems that lie in store if they do nothing. Neither can they rely on the private sector to pick up the slack. Businesses, across virtually all industries, are cutting back.

Just about the only one that is not is online retailing, but the model there is based on employing as few folk as possible, of cutting out layers of workers, not adding to them.

Amazon and Ocado are not going to save us. Johnson has to do that, no one else can. If he wants to go down in history and join the greats, he should grasp the moment.