Pret a Manger raises pay for second time in a year amid staff shortages | Pret a Manger

Pret a Manger is investing £10m in raising pay, announcing its third rise in 13 months to a minimum of £10.30 an hour, as hospitality and retail businesses compete to attract workers during the busy run-up to Christmas.

The sandwich shop chain, which has more than 400 outlets in the UK, said it was increasing pay by 5% or 50p an hour for most cafe workers from 1 December. Pay for skilled baristas, who are particularly in short supply, will rise from a minimum of £10.30 to £10.85 – an extra 5p.

The boost comes after the workload of baristas increased when Pret introduced a subscription service that offers frequent customers up to five coffees a day for £25 a month.

Workers will also be able to earn an additional £1.25 an hour, based on a weekly mystery shopper assessment. The bonus was increased from £1 in January.

Pret said 8,600 staff, including shop managers, baristas and ordinary coffee shop workers would have received an average 13% pay rise this year. The workers earn above the legal minimum wage for those aged 23 and above, which is currently £9.50 an hour.

Guy Meakin, the interim managing director at Pret’s UK & Ireland business, said: “With the rising cost of living putting increased pressure on our people, we wanted to do more to support them, and to say thank you for continuing to go above and beyond for our customers.

“This will be the second year in a row we will have introduced a second pay rise in the same year for our employees, and we’re proud to be leading the industry on barista pay.”

The boost for workers comes just over a year after Pret workers threatened to go on strike after being told the company would cease paying for break times, meaning that someone on an eight-hour shift, including a legally required half-hour break, would receive a pay cut of just over 6% a shift compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Pret, which is controlled by JAB Holding Company, a Luxembourg investment vehicle for Germany’s billionaire Reimann family, initially also planned to permanently halve its weekly mystery shopper bonuses to 50p an hour but relented after the Guardian revealed the move, prompting a public outcry.

The latest increase will put Pret on a par with Tesco and John Lewis for basic pay and ahead of Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer.

A string of retailers have now increased pay at least twice in just over a year as the cost of living crisis and staff shortages have forced them to give more in order to retain and recruit workers. Tesco also recently increased pay for shopworkers for the third time in 13 months.

Pret increased pay in January and September last year and January this year before the latest increase. The coffee shop chain paid its boss, Pano Christou, £4.2m in the year to the end of December 2021 – including a near-£4m bonus and double-digit increase in basic pay.