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The CEO of hotel management and advisory business Michels and Taylor, Hugh Taylor, is calling for the UK Government to immediately delay the implementation of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) increase.
The increase iis due to come into effect in April 2020 as an attempt to mitigate the challenges currently facing the UK hospitality industry.
Taylor has written to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to ask the government to reconsider the NMW rise on the basis that is a “better option than relying solely on redundancies.”
He said: “M&T manage and oversee over 60 hotels across the UK for hotel owners, and support numerous other investors through our advisory business. All the hotels we are involved with, like everyone else in the industry, are in need of immediate support to mitigate the catastrophic hemorrhaging of revenue currently affecting these businesses.
“Given our hope and expectation that, like the SARS epidemic, business in hotels will normalise relatively quickly once the effects of the virus diminish, it is vital that short term actions are put in place to help reduce the cost burden of hotel owners and allow them to operate effectively until the crisis is over. The government can help with this immediately through a delay in the NMW increase.”
He added: “It’s about managing the next six months and protecting as many jobs as possible for when business returns. A delay of the NMW increase could save a large number of existing jobs that would otherwise need to be taken out. Surely it is better to delay a pay rise than to lose a job.”
Michels and Taylor operates and manages over 70 hotels across the UK and is run by the company is run by Sir David Michels, ex-CEO of Hilton Group, alongside Taylor.
