Marston's sheds jobs as new pubs planned
Brewing and pubs group Marston's, which has its headquarters in Wolverhampton, is making 30 redundancies among its office staff.
But the company, based at the Park Brewery site in Chapel Ash, has stressed the move will have no impact on its plans to build more pubs and hire hundreds more workers to run them.
It is understood the 30 jobs are going through a mixture of voluntary redundancies, offers of enhanced severance pay and non-replacement of vacant posts.
A Marston's spokesman said: "I can confirm there are 30 redundancies among headquarters roles where we currently employ 1,200 people.
They are not all in Wolverhampton – we have other offices around the country.
"But we are also creating 1,200 jobs as we build 25 new pubs this year. Our new build programme has seen us create 3,000 jobs in the last five years."
The company also denied suggestions that it was selling up to 400 pubs in the region this year. Marston's had already said it would sell some pubs this year, but that would be nationwide, said the spokesman, who described the 400 number as "massively exaggerated".
"The selling of the pubs is nothing we don't do constantly," he said. "As we said in our annual report, it is to help fund capital work.
"There isn't an exact number; we are continuously buying and selling pubs as well as building new ones as part of the everyday running of the business."
The spokesman added: "Like every retail business we are focusing very clearly on our front line sales, investing in our pubs and meeting our customers' demands, while we keep a tight grip on our back-office costs."
Marston's, which has an estate of around 2,150 pubs, employs more than 12,000 people. Despite the office staff redundancies it is looking to recruit to meet the growing demand for pub food. The brewer revealed last year there had been a 10 per cent increase in sales of bottled ales in its latest trading period.
