Labour Turnover: The Wetherspoons Story

It’s a Friday night in a busy Wetherspoons pub in Manchester. Orders are flying in through the app, the bar staff are juggling pints and food trays, and the floor staff are rushing between tables. But if you come back in three months, you might notice something different, a lot of the faces behind the bar will have changed.

That’s because Wetherspoons, like much of the hospitality industry, has one of the highest rates of labour turnover in the UK.

What is labour turnover?

Labour turnover measures how many employees leave a business in a given period (usually a year), expressed as a percentage of the workforce.

To calculate the labour turnover of a business, you can use the following formula:

Number of staff leaving / average number of staff in post x 100

(over time period)

For example, if Wetherspoons employs 1,000 people in a region and 300 leave over the year. The calculation would be:

300 / 1000 × 100 = 30%

That’s nearly a third of the workforce turning over in just 12 months.

But you need to think of labour turnover as more than just a formula. This video gives you the bigger picture before we step into the Wetherspoons story.

Why is labour turnover so high in hospitality?

Jobs in pubs, restaurants, and hotels are often:

• Seasonal or part-time: many staff are students or temporary workers.

• Demanding: long shifts, late nights, and weekend work.

• Lower paid than other sectors.

  
  

For Wetherspoons, this means many employees don’t stick around for long. A bartender might join for the summer, work a few hectic shifts, and decide it’s not for them. Others move on to jobs in retail, offices, or further study.

The cost of constant change

High turnover isn’t just an HR headache, it impacts the whole business:

• Recruitment & training costs: constantly hiring and training new staff eats into profits.

• Customer experience: new staff take time to learn the ropes, so service can slip.

• Team morale: regular departures can leave remaining staff feeling stretched or demotivated.

  
  

For a company like Wetherspoons, which prides itself on affordable food and quick service, these challenges are magnified.

Could high turnover ever be positive?

Not all turnover is bad. For example:

• It can bring in fresh energy and new ideas.

• It allows the business to phase out underperforming staff.

• In a sector where many jobs are designed to be temporary (e.g. student work), turnover is almost expected.

  
  

The challenge for Wetherspoons is finding the balance between natural movement and costly churn.

Questions for business students to think about:

1. If a Wetherspoons pub employs 60 staff on average in a year, and 18 leave, what is its labour turnover rate?

2. Why do you think hospitality has higher labour turnover compared to industries like healthcare or banking?

3. Is high labour turnover always bad for a business like Wetherspoons, or can it sometimes be useful? Explain your answer.

   
   

In summary, labour turnover isn’t just a number on a spreadsheet. For businesses like Wetherspoons, it affects costs, customer service, and company culture. Some staff will always come and go, but too much churn can leave even the busiest pub struggling to keep up with demand.