BBC business reporter
Getty ImagesRetailer John Lewis has said its staff will not receive a bonus for the third year in a row, despite reporting a jump in annual profits.
The employee-owned retail partnership, which also includes the Waitrose supermarket chain, said profits last year rose by 73% to £97m.
However, it has not restored the staff bonus, saying it would invest in its business and workers’ pay instead.
Chairman Jason Tarry said he was “determined to pay a bonus as soon as we possibly can” but that “will depend on where we are at the time”.
A company source added that John Lewis had no specific thresholds or criteria for reinstating the bonus.
The John Lewis Partnership employs about 69,000 people, and earlier this month it said shop workers would receive a 7.4% pay rise this year.
But this is the fourth time in five years that John Lewis has not paid a bonus.
The string of freezes started in 2020 – the first time it had scrapped them since 1953 – after it was hit by Covid lockdown store closures.
In its results published on Thursday for the year to the end of January, Waitrose sales grew 4.4% to £8bn, and it sold more of its own-brand products.
But John Lewis department store sales were the same as the previous year.
John Lewis said that while it expected the economic environment to be “challenging for our customers and our business” in the year ahead, it was still confident it could push up profits.
Charles Allen, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, said the lack of bonus “had been signalled”.
“I also think we have to put in the light of another big pay raise that’s coming through in line with the minimum wage jump.
“And then of course, although the partners don’t see it, you’ve got a very large rise in employer National Insurance as well.”
John Lewis was one of the signatories of a letter to the government last year, which said the rise in employer National Insurance contributions from April would make High Street job losses “inevitable”.
Mr Tarry said on Thursday there will be job losses in the coming year, but as far as possible these will come through people leaving their jobs and that role then not being filled, and existing employees being redeployed, rather than redundancies.
He added that increased employer National Insurance costs from April would cost the business £40m in the coming year.
John Lewis has been trying to win back customers with a recovery plan after a tough few years that saw it cut jobs and close several stores.
In March 2024, it reported its first annual profit after years of losses, but also said it would not pay a staff bonus.
In September last year, it brought back its “never knowingly undersold” price pledge, two years after abandoning it.
Before initially axing the pledge, staff were still using pencils, spreadsheets, and trips to other shops to keep track of rivals’ prices.
The company said it now uses artificial intelligence to track competitor prices in physical stores and online, and also to look at menu trends to help it decide its own menus.
