Rolls-Royce will give more than 14,000 employees a £ 2,000 payment to help them cope with rising living costs, the first time the engineering firm has made such a move.
The one-time payment will go to the staff of the workshop and the junior management, which are based mainly in the two largest sites of the company in Derby and Bristol. They make up 70% of Rolls-Royce’s UK workforce of around 20,000.
A Rolls-Royce spokesman said the company was offering most of its employees in the UK a lump sum of £ 2,000 “to help them in the current exceptional economic climate”. He said this was the first time the company had paid a lump sum that was not related to performance but to the economic climate.
In the latest sign that the cost of living crisis is getting worse, data firm Kantar said on Tuesday that annual food bills would rise by £ 380 this year. Food price inflation jumped to 8.3% in the four weeks to June 12.
Energy bills have risen in the UK, petrol and diesel prices have risen to record highs, and official inflation has reached a 40-year high of 9% in April. The energy price cap could reach nearly £ 3,000 in early October, according to a new forecast by research firm Cornwall Insight.
About 3,000 Rolls-Royce employees – mostly junior managers – will receive the lump sum in August, while the remaining 11,000 workers represented by Unite will receive it once it is approved by the union. The company is also offering these 11,000 workers in the workshop a 4% salary increase retroactive to March. The average salary among them is £ 40,000 a year.
The spokesman said: “In addition, we offer our employees the highest annual salary increase for at least a decade, retrospectively until March, and together these measures represent a 9% increase in their salaries.
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Junior managers already had a salary increase in March, an average of 2.5% compared to other managers in the company, and they receive more than workers in the workshop.
Workers in the workshops not represented by the union also received an average salary increase of 2.5% in March, but if the union accepts the 4% pay agreement, Rolls-Royce will also increase the salaries of non-union workers with unions. 1.5%, so they pick up the same package.
Last week, it became clear that Lloyds Bank would give more than 64,000 employees a one-off payment of £ 1,000 to help with rising living costs. The payment, due in August, comes after a campaign by Unite.
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