JCB hands staff £500 bonus and pay increase

JCB’S UK employees have been handed a £500 Christmas bonus and a 5.2% pay increase.

Around 4,400 employees at the plant firm’s factories in Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Wrexham will share in the bonus, worth a total of more than £2m. In addition, from the first of January, UK employees will receive a pay increase linked to November’s Retail Price Index (RPI).

JCB chairman Sir Anthony Bamford said: “JCB has continued to recover strongly this year from the difficult trading conditions of 2008 and 2009 and all areas of our business rose to the challenge of growing sales in a tough economic environment. Last year we sold 51,600 machines and this year sales will increase by more than 30%.

“The award of another Christmas bonus and a substantial pay increase wouldn’t have been possible without team work at JCB during the severe economic downturn of 2008 and 2009 when everyone worked together to ensure the business emerged strongly from a difficult trading period.”

In October 2008, UK production employees at JCB voted to work a 34 hour week in order to help save colleagues’ jobs. All employees also endured an 18-month pay freeze from 2009 to the summer of 2010.