Marks and Spencer will give more than 40,000 store workers across the UK a pay rise from April after a huge investment in staff wages.
Customer assistant staff will see their hourly pay increase to £10.90 from £10.20 from April 1, M&S revealed. This will take it ahead of the national living wage which has been set at £10.42 an hour for those over the age of 23 from April this year.
Employees in London stores will see their hourly wages upped to £12.05 from £11.25. The move will cost the upmarket retailer £57 million and mark its biggest ever investment into its front-line workers' rewards.
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It will see about 62% of its 65,000 employees benefit from the salary boost. The move follows two separate pay rises over the past year and means that a full-time customer assistant will earn nearly £150 a month more, compared to the same time last year, M&S said.
It also means that the hourly rate of pay has risen by more than 20% in just over two years, which the group stressed is inflation-beating, with the UK's consumer prices index (CPI) reaching a peak of 11.1% late last year.
Stuart Machin, chief executive at M&S, said: "Whether you're running a home or a business, everyone is trying to balance the reality of rising costs. Of course, we all hope inflation subsides, and there are some positive signs that it is doing so, but we need to help colleagues in the here-and-now.
"That's why we are investing so significantly in our hourly rates of pay and why we are supporting colleagues with a continued commitment to our wide-ranging package of industry leading benefits."
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