Costa employs 16,000 people across its 1,600 wholly owned UK stores, which means that about 10 per cent of its staff are at risk of losing their jobsCosta Coffee became the latest high street business to be hit by the dearth of city centre shoppers as it announced up to 1,650 redundancies. Britain’s biggest coffee shop operator, which is owned by Coca-Cola, said the continuing impact of the coronavirus crisis had required it to make “difficult decisions to ensure that as many jobs as possible are protected long-term”. The news comes a week after Pret A Manger revealed plans to cut almost 2,900 jobs as the reluctance of workers to return to the office, particularly in London, continued to take its toll on the sandwich chain’s sales. While Pret is closing 30 branches as part of the workforce reduction, Costa has made no specific mention of shop closures, saying only: “In

Source: The Times September 03, 2020 16:07 UTC