John Lewis pays out £35m for staff bonus as sales rise by 5%

The owner of John Lewis and Waitrose has paid an annual bonus to workers for the first time in four years after underlying profits rose by 6%.

- Sarah Butler

The retail group’s 69,000 employees - which it calls partners - will share £35m, the equivalent of 2% of salary, after it recorded an increase in sales and profits. The payout amounts to about one extra week of pay.

Sales at the John Lewis Partnership rose 5% to £13.4bn and profits increased to £134m in the year to 31 January, slightly behind expectations in what the chair, Jason Tarry, called “a subdued market”.

He said profits had been hit by £40m in additional national insurance contributions and £13m in new packaging levies although its business rates bill did not increase. The company fell to a loss of £21m before tax after one-offs including the write-down of old technology. That compares with a profit of £97m the year before.

The staff-owned group had not paid a bonus in four of the previous five years, after diving to a loss during the pandemic, when it was forced to close all stores during lockdowns.