Retailer offers free breakfast and lunch to its 40,000 workers to help them with the cost-of-living crisis

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Retailer offers free breakfast and lunch to its 40,000 workers to help them with the cost-of-living crisis
The John Lewis store on Oxford Street in central London.Getty Images
  • UK retailer John Lewis is offering workers free breakfast and lunch over the Christmas period.
  • The scheme is aimed at helping staff cope with big jumps in the cost of living in Britain.
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A retailer is offering workers free breakfast and lunch for the three months running up to Christmas to help its 40,000 staff cope with the cost-of-living crisis.

The John Lewis Partnership in the UK will offer free food to all workers, including temporary staff, from 3 October to 6 January, it announced on Wednesday. It owns both the John Lewis department store chain and Waitrose supermarkets.

Office, store, and warehouse workers will be able to get breakfast and lunch from a staff canteen, while truck drivers will be able to order a packed lunch.

The scheme is aimed at helping workers with soaring inflation that has driven up food prices and squeezed wages. Inflation in the UK is running at about 10%, the highest since the 2008 global financial crash.

Energy bills have also soared in recent months, in part due to the war in Ukraine limiting Russian energy supplies to Europe. High energy bills have been driving Europeans to take shorter showers and sit in cold offices to avoid energy shortages, Insider reported.

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John Lewis is recruiting more than 10,000 temporary staff to work over the busy Christmas shopping period and is hoping to draw in workers with the perks.

Other benefits as well as free meals include interest-free loans, shopping discounts, and a one-off cost of living bonus.

Unlike other big British retailers, John Lewis is owned by its employees and had paid some of the highest wages in the sector.

However, The Guardian reported that its pay has become less competitive with its average hourly rate now overtaken by several big supermarket chains.

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