Pret a Manger has said it will now pay hundreds of teenagers it plans to hire this summer, after campaigners criticised the company for offering work experience roles for free food but no pay.

The Guardian reported that the sandwich chain hoped to solve its looming recruitment crisis by offering 500 16- to 18-year-olds a week of unpaid work experience.

On Saturday, however, Pret’s chief executive, Clive Schlee, tweeted that the company would pay all participants Pret’s hourly starting rate “and of course provide free food as well”.

We’ve seen how passionately you feel about our work experience week initiative. We can confirm that all participants will be paid. pic.twitter.com/dDzZWpbAOm — Pret (@Pret) March 25, 2017

The minimum wage is £4 an hour for under 18s and £5.55 for 18- to 20-year-olds.

Only one in 50 of Pret’s job applicants are born in the UK, so the company is particularly exposed to the threat of non-UK workers leaving or avoiding the country in the wake of Brexit.

Participants in Pret’s Big Experience Week would “get exposure to aspects of our business including food production, customer service, social responsibility [care for the homeless] and financial control”, the company said.

With Brexit on the horizon, it said the new work experience programme was part of efforts to take on the “long-term challenge that Pret and the wider industry must meet to ensure hospitality is seen by Brits as a serious career choice”.

Andrea Wareham, Pret’s human resources director, wrote in a blog on the company’s website: “Attracting British applicants is not exclusively a Pret problem, and is symptomatic of a wider cultural bias. British schools and parents don’t always take careers in the hospitality industry seriously, but they really ought to.

“The industry has changed dramatically over the past 20 years and today it is strong, dynamic and growing.”

She said the company would find it all but impossible to recruit enough staff if it were forced to turn its back on EU nationals after Britain left the EU.

Pret said it hoped to offer permanent roles to anyone who wished to apply after their work experience week and would stay in touch with those who wanted to remain in education and apply in the future.



The company will be promoting the Big Experience Week through schools with which it already works on a leavers programme. It will also run a social media campaign.

Pret is also hoping to attract more British workers by increasing recruitment advertising, using social media, doubling the intake to its school leavers programme and working with Jobcentre Plus.