John Lewis cuts staff bonus as profit falls 77%

John Lewis Partnership (JLP) has cut its annual staff bonus to the lowest level in 64 years after profit plunged at the group, which owns Waitrose and a chain of department stores.

The company said 85,000 workers, known as partners because they jointly own the business, would share a £74m bonus, equivalent to 5% of annual pay. All partners, from leading executives to Saturday shelf-stackers, receive the same percentage bonus.

Sir Charlie Mayfield, the chairman of JLP, said it had been a “challenging year”.

He blamed the downturn in profit and the staff payout – which has been cut for five years in a row – on subdued consumer demand and “significant changes to operations across the partnership, which affected many partners”. Mayfield said the coming year was likely to put further pressure on profit.

The bonus cut came as profit fell 77% to £103.9m in the year to the end of January. Much of the damage to the bottom line was the result of one-off charges to cover redundancy and restructuring costs.

Source: theguardian