Greene King has revealed to axe 800 jobs and close pubs, as the 10 pm curfew continues to wreak havoc on the industry.

The pub operator has begun consultation with 800 employees about a redundancy process, learnt Sky News.

Around 80 pubs are expected to close with one-third of the closures to be permanent.

Greene King is the UK’s largest pub retailer and brewer and employs 38,000 people across Britain.

Nick Mackenzie, Greene King’s chief executive, said recently that the government was not going far enough to help the pub industry amid the social distancing measures and curfew.

He said: “(The industry is) still dealing with the crippling aftereffects of the nationwide lockdown and the cumulative effect of the new restrictions.”

“With Public Health England figures showing only 5% of all outbreaks are linked to hospitality, it feels like pubs are being unfairly targeted when there is little evidence that they enable the spread of Covid-19,” he added.

One in four business owners in the hospitality sector believes that they could go under by the end of the year. The sector has urged the government to rethink the curfew in an open letter disregarding it as ineffective.

The letter was signed by British Beer & Pub Association, UK Hospitality and the British Institute of Innkeeping, as well as pub groups including Heineken and Greene King.

A Greene King spokesman has declined to comment.