Sector bosses sound alarm on UK jobs market as applications surge: Sector bosses are sounding the alarm on the UK jobs market, as applicants surge for waning numbers of vacancies while employers shrink their workforces and cut staff hours. Sir Tim Martin, founder and chair of JD Wetherspoon, said his company was experiencing a sharp rise in job applications. “One pub manager said that a part-time afternoon shift had got a hundred applications,” he told the FT. “There are a lot of people looking for work.” Sir Tim said the government’s “policies that were meant to help working people risk hurting the people they want to help”. Hospitality and retail businesses are bearing the brunt of tax and minimum wage increases and new workers’ rights that drive up labour costs particularly sharply in sectors with large numbers of low-wage, part-time young workers. Job losses in these two sectors account for most of the 145,000 fall in payroll employment recorded since the minimum wage changes and rise in employers’ national insurance contributions were announced last October. UKHospitality chair Kate Nicholls said the industry’s workforce had dropped by 10,000 people in the past month alone and businesses were not keeping on summer staff. She added: “Two-thirds of members say they are reducing staff hours and headcount largely due to national insurance, anticipation of further national living wage rises and uncertainty around the Employment Rights Bill.” The reforms encompassed by the bill – including day one protection against unfair dismissal, a new right to guaranteed hours and an extension of statutory sick pay – will have a disproportionate effect in hospitality, where many workers are on zero or low hours contracts. Spencer Craig, founder of London coffee company Pure, said: “For every job we advertise – whether that’s a barista, a store manager or marketing manager – we get 500 applicants. Two years ago that was about 50 applicants. It’s a tough market for people to find a job at all. We’re also seeing a lot more senior people applying for junior roles.” Craig said Pure had started cutting staffing hours as soon as the Budget came in, and Labour’s measures amounted to “bizarre policy – it’s anti-employment”. He added: “For a government that wants to get people off the welfare bill and into employment and achieve growth, the Employment Rights Bill makes it even harder to employ people.” MPs last week voted against amendments to the Employment Rights Bill passed by the House of Lords before the summer recess that would have addressed some of employers’ concerns about the new day one right to protection against unfair dismissal and a right to guaranteed hours. However, crucial details of many of the key measures – including how the new right to guaranteed hours will work and who will be eligible – will be settled only through regulation once the bill has become law.