The John Lewis owner cut 3,500 jobs last year yet hired a chief on a £1.2 MILLION pay deal. Further job cuts are likely as the John Lewis Partnership, which owns John Lewis and also Waitrose, says it is investing in automation as part of "simplifying the way we work".
John Lewis, which operates a store in Solihull, as well as Waitrose stores up and down the West Midlands, cut 3,500 jobs last year but employed its first group chief executive on a more than £1m pay deal. The group has 34 John Lewis department stores and 329 Waitrose supermarkets.
It said it mployed 72,900 people in its annual report published on Thursday, down from 76,400 a year before, helping to reduce its pay bill to £1.79bn from £1.82bn. Its chief Sharon White has a pay packet of £1.12m and new chief executive, Nish Kankiwala, was paid £1.18m after stepping into the role in March.
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A spokesperson for the company said: “The reduction in roles has mainly been through natural turnover. We have made significant progress in the last year to transform the business and return it to profitability; we are investing record amounts in our retail brands and we expect profits to grow further next year.”
The group recently revealed it was closing one of its Waitrose delivery warehouses, putting more than 500 jobs at risk. Staff at the facility had tried to argue they should receive higher exit packages after the partnership cut its redundancy pay scheme in half earlier this year, making it cheaper to lay off staff.
The group instead agreed to one week’s pay per year of service in addition to statutory payouts from the government. A spokesman for John Lewis said: “We pride ourselves on the award-winning service that our partners provide to customers. More than one million new customers shopped with our brands last year.
“We’re investing significantly in training and developme
