Thousands of Wetherspoons staff get pay rise as boozer hikes wages to more than £10 an hour for the first time

THOUSANDS of Wetherspoons staff had their pay boosted to more than £10 an hour for the first time.

Workers are getting an extra 20p an hour, which means their wage rates are above that of the National Living Wage rate, which is £9.50 an hour.

That's the minimum rate that workers over 23 years old must be paid.

The extra pay will come in handy as families are facing a crippling cost of living crisis.

Bills from food and fuel to energy and transport are going up, squeezing budgets to the max.

But it comes as official figures show that while workers saw wages boosted by up to 5.4% over the past three months, these gains have been outstripped by the soaring rate of inflation.

It means workers have actually seen a cut in real terms to regular pay packets as inflation rockets to 6.3%.

A Wetherspoons spokesperson confirmed workers' pay packets were boosted on April 1.

They added: "We review pay once or twice a year and try to remain competitive within the hospitality industry."

Pay was boosted around the same point that energy bills, National Insurance rates and council tax jumped up.

On April 1, millions of families saw their energy bills double to an average of £1,971 a year when the price cap went up.

While National Insurance also went up by 1.25 percentage points - which means 25million Brits will have to pay 13.5% in contributions on earnings between £184 to £967 a week.

And households saw council tax increase by up to 5% as authorities scrabble to raise cash for rising social care costs and extra spending during the pandemic.

Wetherspoons isn't the only company to have hiked wages.

Tesco announced it would boost thousands of workers' pay packets to £10.10 this summer.

While Aldi gave 28,000 workers a wage increase in February this year, with store assistants getting at least £10.10, and £11.55 within the M25.

Marks and Spencer did too, increasing wages by 50p an hour to £10 per hour.