Last checked at 
* Half-year adj. pre-tax loss 56.6 mln pounds vs. 367.4 mln
* Very high levels of demand in UK continues
* Invests in salaries, bonuses to tackle labour shortages
(Adds occupancy detail, shares)
By Muvija M and Chris Peters
Oct 26 (Reuters) - Premier Inn owner Whitbread on
Tuesday reported a smaller half-year loss and predicted a full
recovery at its UK hotels in 2022, but warned of labour
shortages across the industry as it set aside tens of millions
of pounds to attract new hires.
The company, which has 30,000 staff in 1,200 its hotels and
restaurants across Britain, said it plans to spend about 23
million pounds ($31.63 million) on salary increases and one-off
bonuses as it deals with a "material number of vacancies".
Staff shortages due to the health crisis are widespread but
Britain is also dealing with the fallout from Brexit, which has
significantly reduced EU workers across a range of industries
from poultry to the haulage sector.
"Overall within the industry there is a shortage of people
who are available for work, particularly experienced people
where the training load is less," Chief Executive Alison
Brittain told a media call.
"I think it (labour shortages) is a combination of a number
of factors that have all come together at the same time ... We
just have to work out over a little period of time whether it is
a structural issue or a temporary issue."
The company said high occupancy levels at its hotels
combined with the market-wide supply chain issues and tighter
labour supply, especially in tourist locations and London, had
created a challenging operating environment.
The owner of steakhouses Beefeater and Bar+Block reported a
narrowing in its adjusted pretax loss to 56.6 million pounds for
the six months ended Aug. 26 from 367.4 million pounds a year
earlier.
Shares in Whitbread, which is now seeing pre-Covid levels of
demand in some regions, were up 3% on the FTSE 100 blue-chip
index by 0825 GMT.
The company said revPAR - a key performance indicator for
hotel operators - on a like-for-like basis in the UK could
potentially reach full recovery at some point in 2022.
"The pandemic has likely seen smaller operators forced to
close, creating a gap into which Whitbread can expand in the
UK," Hargreaves analyst Nicholas Hyett said.
($1 = 0.7272 pounds)
(Reporting by Muvija M and Chris Peters in Bengaluru; editing
by Uttaresh.V and Jane Merriman)
