Hospitality's hidden jobs crisis and the self-service trap

The latest ONS figures show hospitality absorbing roughly two-thirds of the UK's net job losses over the past year, even as overall hiring slows to a five-year low. I unpack what that means for a sector that has always relied on high turnover to function and ask the uncomfortable question: is hospitality a warning sign for the wider economy, or simply the shock absorber taking the strain?

In this week's insight, I look at the two opposite forces currently reshaping foodservice. While most of the economy is quietly handing work back to customers, eating out is doing the reverse: cooking keeps leaving the home and becoming paid work. But ordering and serving are being handed back via kiosks, apps and QR codes. I look at what this split matters, why service is the expensive part of the bill and why operators caught in the middle, charging full-service prices while running food-to-go economics, are the ones in trouble (TGI Fridays and Pizza Hut Restaurants being the cautionary tale).

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