M&S announces second pay rise this year amid surging inflation

Marks & Spencer said on Wednesday that it will give store staff their second pay rise this year to help ease the cost-of-living crisis.

The retailer announced a £15m package and said it has introduced an additional Autumn pay review for the first time.

From 1s October, more than 40,000 staff members will see their hourly pay increased to a minimum of £10.20 an hour. This follows an initial pay increase to £10.00 from £9.50 in April, which the company pointed out is above both the national and real living wage. Combined, this represents an annual increase of 7.4% and means a full-time customer assistant will earn more than £100 more each month compared to October last year.

M&S will also provide its 4,500 salaried colleagues at pre-management levels in its stores and support centres with a one-off £250 voucher. Other measures include a free meal per shift for colleagues at the company’s distribution centre in Castle Doning.

Chief executive Stuart Machin said: "Whether you’re running a home or running a business, everyone across the country is feeling the pressure of rising costs. We want to do what we can to help ease some of that strain; that's why we have invested in price to deliver better value for our customers and, why we are investing in our colleague base pay for the second time this year.

"Our colleagues are our biggest asset, and we want to ensure they are fully supported and rewarded for the remarkable contribution they make to M&S."

Last week, figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that UK inflation eased in August but remained close to a 40-year high.

Consumer price inflation slowed to 9.9% from 10.1% in July, coming in below consensus expectations for an increase to 10.2%. Most of the decline was down to a drop in fuel inflation to 32.1% from 43.7%.

The data showed that food price inflation rose to 13.4% in August from 12.8% the month before, while clothing price inflation edged up to 7.9% from 6.9% to 7.9%.

Core inflation - which strips out food, alcohol and tobacco and energy - ticked up to 6.3% on the year, from 6.2%.