Almost 9,000 Hospitality Jobs Lost Since the Budget

The latest labour market data from the Office for National Statistics also reveals that hospitality employed 20,014 fewer people in December 2025, compared to September 2025. This comes at a time when the sector would be traditionally staffing up, in preparation for the busy festive season.

These figures reinforce the scale of the challenges facing hospitality, with the impact of changes to employer NICs and other increased employment costs continuing to impact the sector.

Successive Budgets have increased the cost and tax burden on the hospitality sector exponentially, with businesses braced for a further blow in April when business rates are set to rise significantly.

UKHospitality is calling for urgent action to avert these increases to business rates, through a hospitality-wide solution. It is urging the Government to increase the business rates discount for hospitality properties to the maximum 20p permitted in law.

Allen Simpson, Chief Executive of UKHospitality, said: “Hospitality is being hit by costs at every angle and it is the cumulative effect of this growing tax burden that is resulting in the number of people employed in hospitality continuing to fall.

“It was less than a year ago when our local hospitality venues were landed with £3.4 billion in additional annual cost, and now they face their business rates increasing too.

“We saw significant job losses before the Budget, and we’re seeing that continue to accelerate.

“Hospitality has so much potential to drive growth, create new jobs and help people back into work, but it’s being held back by the highest tax burden in the economy.

“Looming business rates increases are only making things worse and the Government needs to act urgently to bring forward a hospitality-wide solution that averts those hikes. If it doesn’t, we will only see job losses and business closures accelerate.”