Gordon Ramsay Restaurant Group terminates contracts of London restaurant teams

The Gordon Ramsay Restaurant Group has terminated the contracts of hundreds of staff members working across its London restaurants.

Letters sent to team members informed them their contacts would be terminated.

The group, which will pay a four-week notice period, directed its team members to industry charity Hospitality Action for support.

The move is contrary to pleas from the government to keep employees on the payroll and take advantage of its Job Retention Scheme, which will cover 80% of wages for a minimum of three months.

It also comes less that a week after the celebrity chef paid tribute to his London restaurant teams on social media. On 21 March he wrote: "Huge love and thanks to our amazing staff across the restaurants for all their passion and support. I truly hope we are back together very soon."

Ramsay's London restaurants include the three-Michelin-starred Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, one-Michelin-starred Pétrus, the Savoy Grill and Lucky Cat.

Gordon Ramsay Restaurant Group has not yet responded to The Caterer's request for comment, but a spokesperson told the Daily Mail: "Gordon Ramsay Restaurants is continuing to work tirelessly in exceptional, unprecedented, global circumstances to ensure that as many employees as possible are being retained by the business.

"We are no different from any other restaurant/retail business large and small in the UK and around the world responding to the current crisis.

"We welcome greatly and fully support all the initiatives introduced by Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak in particular the coronavirus Job Retention Scheme which is still being refined.

"We continue to work closely with our landlords, government agencies and all third-party suppliers associated with the business through these very challenging times."

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