Brewdog staff will face a spiralling cost of living crisis with less money in their pocket after the Punk IPA brewer announced it will no longer be paying the ‘real’ living wage.
In a letter issued to its workforce, the Scottish firm – which has been on a reputation-saving mission after former staff called out a culture of fear in the business – announced that staff on the ‘real’ living wage will be dropped down to the government’s national wage rate of £11.44 per hour from April, with the rate being removed for new starts with immediate effect.
An excerpt read: “Even with this strong performance over Christmas, as a wider business there is no hiding from the fact that in 2023, we made a trading loss…
“Despite many efforts in the past 12 months to reduce our spending, we still need to find more ways to get this business back to profitability and the financial stability that is needed. Inevitably, this does mean making some hard decisions.”
Fortunately for the company’s chief James Watt, those decisions don’t touch lavish holidays to the Maldives, where he happily posted pictures onto his public profile just before the announcement was made.
It was also revealed last year that the firm is looking to triple its bars business to 300 venues in a vast expansion plan which comes on the back of lavish openings in Waterloo and Las Vegas.
Revenues from BrewDog bars increased by £44 million, or 68 per cent, in 2022 compared to the previous year.
BrewDog said it expected bar revenues to increase by a further 25 per cent in 2023.
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