John Lewis and Co-op to increase minimum pay for staff

John Lewis and the Co-op are both raising minimum pay levels for workers as retailers try to retain staff and react to the rising living wage.

John Lewis and Waitrose - both part of the same group - will lift pay for store workers to £11.55 an hour from April, and to £12.89 in London.

This is above the compulsory National Living Wage, which will increase to £11.44 per hour next month.

The Co-op will increase pay for 37,000 store workers by 10.1% to £12 an hour.

In London, the rate will go up to £13.15 an hour.

The Co-op is owned by its members and runs Britain's seventh biggest grocery chain.

It said the move was its "biggest ever investment into pay", with an increase of more than 20% in the past two years for workers.

The John Lewis Partnership is also owned by its members and has 80,000 partners. It claims to be the largest employee-owned business in the UK.

The National Living Wage will include 21 and 22-year-olds for the first time when it increases in April. The minimum wage will also go up, and still apply to those of school leaving age and up.

Due to the rise, big supermarkets and retailers have been announcing pay deals over the past few weeks.

Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Aldi, Lidl and M&S have all said they will increase pay.

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Aldi put in place higher pay at the start of February, and Lidl and Sainsbury's increased wages from March.

Workers at M&S will get a pay rise from April, while Asda will bring in an interim increase on 1 April to £11.44 an hour before raising the rate to £12.04 an hour from 1 July.