ONS Report: Economies of Ale – Pubs in the Time of Covid

The Office For National Statistics’ latest report puts Hospitality’s Covid struggle into numbers

The Office For National Statistics (ONS) today published a research-based report on the impact that Covid-19 has had on the pub sector. While the report does not specifically address cocktail bars, pubs have experienced more-or-less identical difficulties, and although most readers will be able to predict some of the report’s conclusions based on personal experience, it still makes for interesting reading. Of particular note are the sections which compare pubs to other business sectors, clearly demonstrating that hospitality has had it worse than almost any other industry.

For example: “The responses…show that in late April while 44% of all businesses had high confidence in surviving the pandemic, only 20% of pubs did. The figures also show that while around 1 in 10 (8%) workers were furloughed in late April, this rose to over half (55%) for pub employees, despite many pubs having reopened. The figures also give a worrying profit warning, with a third (33%) of pubs reporting profits were down more than a half in late April, compared with only a tenth (9%) of all other businesses.

You can read the full ONS report here.

And you can examine the ONS dataset here