Hollywood Bowl boss: ‘Incredibly painful’ tax hikes make it harder to hire

The boss of Hollywood Bowl has hit out at Labour’s “incredibly painful” hikes to national insurance and the minimum wage for making it harder to employ workers.

Stephen Burns, chief executive of the UK’s largest tenpin bowling operator, told City AM that Labour policy has made it “significantly more expensive to employ somebody than it ever was before.”

He said: “The increases in national insurance contributions are incredibly painful for employers, [as is] the constant increase in national living wage.

“I’m all for people being fairly rewarded for what they do, but removing the age gaps just stops you recruiting younger people, because it’s the same amount of money to employ an experienced person – so why wouldn’t you, if you can.”

Burns said he agreed with “quite a lot” of the comments made earlier this week by Lord Simon Wolfson, the chief executive of Next.

The retail boss told the BBC the government’s plans to crack down on zero-hour contracts will make it “much harder” for his company to offer more hours to staff.

Wolfson also called on the government to unwind its hikes to national insurance contributions and the minimum wage, which he dubbed “employment taxes”.

‘Very, very painful’ business rates hit

Burns called on Labour to engage more with leading businesses to help solve growing youth unemployment, which a former health secretary dubbed an “economic catastrophe” in an upcoming review.

The bowling boss said: “Leisure and retail is very reliant on people and we need to make sure that, as gateway employers, we’re encouraging employment and recruitment.

“There’s various different things that a forward-thinking, business focussed government could do for us which will make investment much more possible.”

Burns hit out at Labour’s reforms to business rates, which he said dealt a “very, very painful” £1.5m hit to Hollywood Bowl in just one 12-month period. 

He also said the two per cent hike to corporation tax and the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) packaging tax are barriers to growth for UK businesses.

Burns said these policies make it harder for his firm to be a “gateway employer” and offer young people their first paid roles.

Hollywood Bowl’s share price surged by 15 per cent on Wednesday after it reported growing revenue and spend per customer.

Heatwave strikes Hollywood Bowl

While the bank holiday’s record temperatures will have offered a boost for other hospitality firms, Burns said his company operates on a “rain is good, sun is bad” mantra.

He said: “What we find is we outperform when it rains to the same degree we underperform when the sun comes out.

“Now we tend to have a bit more rain than we have sun in this country, so we find that weather offers us more opportunity than downside risk, but sustained periods of hot weather aren’t great for us. 

“But what you find is over the course of a year or two year period, the weather tends to even itself out.”

Hollywood Bowl’s growing revenue has been driven in large part by its growing spend per customer, which rose by eight per cent to £12.77 in the six months to March. 

This growing spend is boosted by Hollywood Bowl’s use of a dynamic pricing system, Burns said, which varies within a pound either side of a set rate.

“Those who are time-rich but money-poor can come at a time that better suits us and pay a significant discount, and then the money-rich time-poor will pay a slight premium to come at a time that suits them, and that allows us to drive fabulous capacity management [and] deliver really good value,” he said.