Retailers John Lewis and the Co-op have announced they will increase their minimum pay levels for workers in an effort to retain staff and comply with the rising living wage. John Lewis and Waitrose, which are part of the same group, will increase pay to £11.55 per hour from April, rising to £12.89 in London. This is higher than the compulsory National Living Wage, which will rise to £11.44 per hour in the following month. Meanwhile, the Co-op will increase pay for 37,000 of its store workers by 10.1% to £12 per hour, rising to £13.15 per hour in London.
The John Lewis Partnership and the Co-op are both owned by their members, and the former is the largest employee-owned business in the UK with 80,000 partners. According to the Co-op, this pay increase is the company’s “biggest ever investment into pay”, with an increase of over 20% for workers over the past two years. The National Living Wage, also known as the minimum wage, will include workers aged 21 and 22 for the first time following its increase in April.
Several UK retailers and supermarkets, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Aldi, Lidl, and M&S, have announced wage increases in response to the National Living Wage increase. Aldi has already implemented higher pay rates as of February, while Sainsbury’s and Lidl have increased wages since March. Marks & Spencer’s workers will also receive a pay increase from April, while Asda will provide an interim pay rise to £11.44 an hour on 1 April, to be followed by a rise to £12.04 an hour from 1 July
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