Staff at Tesco have reportedly had to make do with Quality Streets instead of their usual Christmas bonus again this year.
Instead of offering vouchers or cash bonuses, the supermarket giant has said that they had doubled the staff discount to 20 per cent over certain days in the build-up to Christmas.
One worker told the Guardian “They’re certainly penny-pinching and trying to drive costs down,” as it was apparently the second year in a row his employer had offered him sweets instead of a Christmas bonus.
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The UK's biggest supermarket agreed in 2019 to ditch its annual cash bonus, usually paid in March to instead be replaced with a higher pay rate.
This comes at a time when supermarkets have reportedly had exceptionally lucrative festive periods with industry analyst Kantar claiming that sales rose by six per cent in the 12 weeks building up to Christmas Day last year.
The chain had increased the rate of pay for shopfloor staff twice last year after promising to pump in £200m. Their pay rate rose to £10.10 in July and then increased further to £10.30 in October, making the total rise eight per cent last year.
A Tesco spokesperson said: ‘We have never given a regular cash bonus at Christmas and it is wrong to suggest that we have replaced one with chocolates.
‘To help colleagues with their Christmas shopping this year, we doubled our colleague discount to 20% in the run-up to Christmas – one of many benefits available to our colleagues, on top of the near 8% increase in base pay we invested over last year.’
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