Free sarnies are gone ... it’s time to earn a crust
Last Updated: 14th May 2012
BORIS JOHNSON called it the “Pret A Manger problem”.
Spanish, French, Arabs, Asians, Africans and Chinese — yes. One single Brit?
More often than not, no.
Pret don’t pay a Leveson Inquiry barrister’s wage, but it’s not slave labour either.
Their starting salary is £7.25 per hour — £1.17 more than the minimum wage.
All successful applicants need is to be punctual, friendly, keen to work and have “a passion” for serving food, according to Pret’s website.
“Our jobs are open to everyone”, they say in the nationwide recruitment appeal.
Yet today there are also more than one million British people under the age of 24 unemployed and the vast majority of them are born and bred here.
It’s not just Pret A Manger. A foreign-born workforce is now the norm across the whole service sector, from Starbucks and McDonald’s to hotels and pubs.
There are two reasons more Brits don’t work for Pret.
One: They don’t want the jobs, which they see as below them. Or two: They apply, but don’t meet the criteria.
