* Wetherspoon holds dividend for fiscal 2021
* Shares fall 6% in early trading
* Pressure on pubs was "particularly acute," says Chairman
(Adds background, shares)
Oct 1 (Reuters) - J D Wetherspoon fell deeper into
the red for its fiscal 2021 and said it had like many other
businesses found it hard to attract workers in some areas of
Britain as trading improved.
The company's losses ballooned to 194.6 million pounds
($261.85 million) for the 12 months ended July 25, from 105.4
million pounds a year earlier because of pandemic curbs. Its
like-for-like sales slumped 38.4%.
Chairman Tim Martin, an outspoken critic of the government's
handling of the health crisis, said the pressure on pub managers
and staff has been particularly acute and some areas of the
country "have found it hard to attract staff".
Wetherspoon's refrained from proposing a final dividend for
the year in which it was forced to seek debt waivers from its
lenders, raise money and cut jobs to get through the health
crisis.
Its shares slid as much as 6% earlier in the session, but
recovered some of those losses to be down 1.3% by 0833 GMT.
The company's sales in the first nine weeks of its current
fiscal year were still 8.7% lower compared to pre-pandemic
levels, but it said it was cautiously optimistic about 2021 as
all curbs have now been lifted.
But the industry faces fresh challenges in the run up to
Christmas as pub operators, which are just beginning to see
signs of recovery after months of closures or reduced capacity,
have been facing a shortage of labour partly due to a
post-Brexit exodus of European workers.
Wetherspoon's said its total number of employees averaged
42,003 as of last week compared with 43,219 at the end of fiscal
2020.
($1 = 0.7432 pounds)
(Reporting by Muvija M in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.
And Elaine Hardcastle)