One of Scotland's largest hospitality companies has announced major redundancies for the second time during the coronavirus pandemic. 

A letter sent out to G1 Group staff cited a loss of over £25million in revenue due to the closure of its venues for the duration of lockdown. 

Scores of staff members for the pubs and clubs giant were told their services were no longer required from August 31. 

Employees will remain on furlough up to that date with their notice period starting on August 24.

The group previously halted plans to dismiss its newest staff members when the UK Government announced the job retention scheme which allowed them to furlough their staff. 

READ MORE: G1 hospitality workers demand fairer treatment after job cut plan axed

While the furlough scheme has been extended to October, from August employers will need to pay a fifth of the contribution. 

The letter sent to employees by the group's CEO, Stefan King, reads: "Unfortunately as a business, the closures have meant a loss of over £25million in revenue to date.

"Whilst the government Job Retention Scheme has provided much welcome assistance, and as a business, we have reduced our expenditure wherever possible (including all directors and senior staff accepting a wage reduction), our essential operating costs including rent, insurance, utilities, borrowing costs and some wages have still required to be paid.

"I have therefore had to take a long hard look to the future and how our business may look in the months and year ahead.

"It is there with a heavy heart that I am forced to write to you today to advise you that we have no option but to make your position redundant as my priority needs to be ensuring that the business is able to continue for the long term in the hope that one day we will be able to grow our workforce once again and to continue where we left off prior to this tragedy.”

Union Unite Hospitality published the full email received by the employees and wrote: "The G1 Group have just sacked every worker with under 2 years service.

"But it’s cool because they are willing to use public funds to pay their wages and notice until the end of August after which they’ll be asked to contribute."

However, the G1 Group strongly refuted the claims made by the union that it was only workers with less than two years of service that were affected. 

A statement released by the group explains that redundancies have been made "at all levels" and that sincere effort had been put in to minimise the number of employees affected. 

A spokeswoman for G1 added: "In a week in which the local news and mainstream media has been dominated by stories of redundancies across a broad spectrum of hospitality groups, from luxury hotels to national casual dining chains, we were disappointed but not surprised that Unite Hospitality have chosen to single out G1 Group once again for what can surely now be accepted as a deeply painful but inevitable outcome as a result of the Covid pandemic.

"Whilst we want to absolutely acknowledge that it is true that we have made redundancies this week at all levels including central office and within our venues, we were shocked and frankly disgusted at the inaccurate reporting that we have “sacked all staff with less than two years notice”.

"The very difficult decisions we have been forced to face have been the result of a comprehensive review at every level and have been based on a variety of factors including our projected loss of revenue in specific sites due to delayed re-opening, reduced operating hours, predicted footfall and more.

"Whilst we have been heartened to see employees past and present refer to this statement tonight as “sensationalism, slanderous and inflammatory”, we wanted to take a moment to clarify our position and to state categorically that Unites reports are entirely untrue.

"The work we have put in behind the scenes to keep this number as low as we possibly can, whilst juggling an impossible landscape of obstacles in relation to trading going forward, should not go unnoticed or unmentioned.

"We cannot stress enough how much emphasis we have put on minimising redundancies wherever possible, and our actions have included pay cuts being implemented at every level of senior management including Directors.

"We would challenge anyone who has ever operated a business like ours to look at our numbers and prescribe a different outcome."

The statement called the union's claims to be an "ugly distortion of truth". 

It continues: "Whilst we do appreciate that news of this type is in the public interest, we would implore the general public to look a little deeper beyond the misinformation that has been shared on social media from Unite.

"For those news outlets and individuals who also chose to share this story, we actively encourage you to take a more proactive and practical approach to fact checking information being shared by an organisation which, by our understanding is supposed to represent fairness and good ethics, but who has in fact displayed a personal vendetta and bullying tactics against G1 for years.

"So much so, that we have in fact been forced to issue a threat of legal action prior to this pandemic. Quite honestly, we are sick of the lies that are consistently circulated by Unite, who seem to think themselves immune to criticism from ourselves and others on their continued bias and ugly distortion of the truth."

It also addresses affected employees telling that the group "simply had no choice". 

"Finally to our staff who have been affected; we hope that our very personal letter to you along with your closer understanding of the business and the sector as a whole allows you to appreciate that should we continue to survive and provide jobs and opportunities in the future, we simply had no choice.

"As we stated when we wrote to you, you have every assurance that we will be looking to employ again as soon as possible, and we cannot wait for that day to come around."

However, Unite Hospitality pledged to fight back the decision by the hospitality giant. 

G1 is Scotland's largest hospitality group, with a collection of 50 venues in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St Andrews.