Lidl becomes Britain’s highest-paying supermarket with new starters in London earning £11.30 an hour and £10.10 outside the capital – 10p more than previous top payer Morrisons
- Bosses said entry-level wages will rise from £9.50 an hour outside London
- Longer-serving staff will see their pay rates also rise to £11.40 and £12.25
- Follows £200 bonus to frontline workers this year, plus £150 gift vouchers
Discount supermarket Lidl has increased the rates of pay for new shop floor workers to more than £10 an hour – which it says will make it the UK’s highest paying supermarket.
Bosses said entry-level wages will rise from £9.50 to £10.10 an hour outside London and from £10.85 to £11.30 in the capital from March next year.
Longer-serving staff will see their pay rates also rise to £11.40 and £12.25 outside and inside London respectively, depending on length of service.
The supermarket claimed it means Lidl is now the highest-paying grocer in the country, adding that this was in recognition of the hard work of staff during the pandemic.
Bosses said entry-level wages will rise from £9.50 to £10.10 an hour outside London and from £10.85 to £11.30 in the capital from March next year
Bosses said the extra £18 million spend by the business on the new wages equates to £50 million invested in hourly wage increases over the past five years.
UK supermarkets: Minimum basic wages
Lidl: £10.10
Morrisons: £10
Asda: £9.18
Waitrose: £9.10
Aldi: £9.40 an hour
Tesco: £9.30
Co-op: £9
Sainsbury’s: £9.30
(According to the latest available rates – excludes London weighting or any bonuses)
It follows a £200 bonus to all frontline workers this year, alongside £150 gift vouchers for all staff in 2020 during the pandemic.
Lidl said it does not expect to have to pass on the cost of pay rises to customers.
Christian Hartnagel, Lidl GB chief executive, said: ‘We have ambitious plans to grow our business across Great Britain, and to do that we need to ensure we attract and look after the best talent at every level of our business.’
He has targeted 1,000 stores by the end of 2023.
Earlier this year, Morrisons became the first UK supermarket to pay at least £10 an hour after increasing its minimum wage from £9.20.
The retailer pays an additional per hour London weighting: 85p for inner London 60p for outer London.
Many businesses have been forced to increase wages amid a continuing battle for staff.
Today, neighbourhood retailer McColl’s became the latest business to warn that it was struggling with a shortage of delivery drivers and warehouse workers.
A lack of workers has helped to drive up inflation, with the headline CPI rate spiking to 4.2 per cent in October from 3.1 per cent in September.
There were 1,172,000 posts vacant in the quarter from August to October, 388,000 more than the pre-Covid level
Yesterday the ONS revealed that wages including bonuses were rising by 5.8 per cent annually – although the figures have been warped somewhat by the effects of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, strong labour market figures showed workers coming off the furlough scheme appear to have been absorbed into jobs – a key factor for the decision on rates.
The number of employees on payrolls hit 29.3million last month, up 160,000 on September – when furlough wound up.
There were 1,172,000 posts vacant in the quarter from August to October, 388,000 more than the pre-Covid level.
Meanwhile the employment rate rose 0.4 percentage points to 75.4 per cent between July and September, while unemployment dipped 0.5 percentage points to 4.3 per cent.
The number of employees on payrolls hit 29.3million last month, up 160,000 on September
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