Rolls-Royce staff to get extra £2,000

THOUSANDS of staff at RollsRoyce will be paid an extra £2,000 to help with the cost of living crisis. More than 14,000 workers at the aerospace giant’s UK sites in Derby and Filton, South Gloucestershire, will receive the payment, according to a report for Sky News.

The money will be given to junior managers and shop-floor workers, while some 11,000 employees at the firm’s UK manufacturing sites will also receive a 4% pay rise backdated to March.

Around 3,000 workers will receive the lump sum in August, while the 11,000 union workers will be paid after Unite approves the payment, it is understood.

The move is expected to cost the engineering giant £28m, while the backdated pay rise will take the aggregate cost to more than £40m.

It follows an announcement by Lloyds Banking Group, which is also giving staff extra pay to help with the rising cost of living amid soaring inflation.

The news comes a month after RollsRoyce chief executive Warren East said he was confident that the company had a “sustainable future”.

Rolls-Royce has cut nearly 9,000 jobs from its global workforce since the pandemic hit and is disposing of four of its ancillary businesses – two of which were sold in 2021.

The sales are expected to generate around £2bn for the company.

Mr East, who is stepping down from the aerospace firm later this year, said in May: “As a result of the actions we have taken, we have made significant progress on the path to recovery from the impact of Covid-19 and are emerging as a better balanced and more resilient business.”

In February, the company swung back into the black, with profits of £124m – up from a £3.1bn loss a year earlier.

Rolls-Royce has said it is working closely with its supply chain to limit the impact of disruption caused by global uncertainties such as the war in Ukraine. Around 20% of the company’s titanium supplies come from Russia, but the engineering firm has been stockpiling for months.

Rolls-Royce’s next scheduled trading update is on August 4, 2022, when the company will publish its half year results.