It’s never easy to announce a big pay rise at the top while factory numbers are falling, and the John Lewis Partnership’s latest annual report highlights this tension.
Jason Tarry (pictured)who took over as chairman of the employee-owned retailer in September 2024, saw his base salary for the year to January increased from £990,000 to £1.2m, an increase of just over a fifth. Taking into account a modest annual bonus of 2 per cent of salary and other benefits, his total package came to almost £1.26 million.
The partnership justified the increase by saying that Tarry now combines the roles of chairman and managing director following the departure of Nish Kankiwala, whose position was eliminated. His predecessor, Sharon White, earned the same basic salary of £990,000 throughout her tenure and took home a total of £1.12 million in each of her last two full years, in which no bonus was paid at all.
By comparison, Tarry’s remuneration is still well below the peak of £1.53 million reached by former chairman Charlie Mayfield in 2015, and well below the almost £2 million paid to the former Co-op Group boss last year. A reduction in the number of senior roles also meant the overall bill for key management, including directors, remained stable at £8m.
But it is the workforce numbers that need to be examined more closely. The partnership now employs 65,700 people, up from 69,000 last year, with Waitrose losing around 1,800 full-time jobs and John Lewis around 1,500. A spokesman said the vast majority of departures were due to natural attrition, with less than 0.5 percent of partners leaving the firm due to redundancies.
The trajectory, however, tells a clearer story. The group employed 76,400 people in 2023 and has now cut around 10,700 jobs over three years – broadly in line with previous reports that the group is considering cutting up to 11,000 jobs by 2029. In March, the company signaled that it would continue to pursue efficiencies, including greater use of electronic shelf labels and artificial intelligence, but declined to say whether further job cuts were planned.
The report contains lighter notes. The partnership paid out an annual bonus to all employees in March for the first time in four years after underlying profits rose 6 percent. Each employee, including the CEO, received the equivalent of 2 percent of their salary.
Tarry’s first 18 months have been marked by a return to retail basics: better stores, improved product availability and higher pay for front-line workers. The group is investing £800 million across its estate and has already renovated 23 Waitrose stores and five John Lewis stores in the past year. The department store chain has caused long queues on the high street with the revival of Topshop and has seen new footfall thanks to the return of its famous promise to “never knowingly be undersold”.
While 16 John Lewis department stores have closed in recent years, the chain remains the largest of its kind in Britain, buoyed by the collapse of former rivals Debenhams and Beales and the radical downsizing of House of Fraser.
However, not everything went smoothly under Tarry. The partnership was criticized after it fired an autistic man who had worked for years as a volunteer as an unpaid shelf stacker at a Waitrose store. More recently, the firing of a 17-year-old employee who intervened to stop a shoplifter from stealing Lindt Gold Bunny Easter eggs attracted widespread attention and a prompt job offer from rival grocer Iceland.
For a company founded on the principle that every employee is a partner, balancing executive pay increases with a shrinking workforce will remain one of the defining challenges of Tarry’s leadership. The numbers may be right on paper, but the optics require careful handling in a retailer whose brand is inextricably linked to the people who run it.
