Johannesburg – Woolworths South Africa (WSA) has committed to investing an extra R120 million in wages over the next three years, and has approved a 4.5% increase for South African store staff, according to the Woolworths 2021 annual report released yesterday.
According to the annual report, the WSA base pay last year was 47% higher than the South African minimum wage rate and 13% above that of the retail sector. The legislated minimum wage is currently R21.69 an hour.
“To further accelerate the improvement in the lives of WSA store-based employees, we will invest an additional R120 million over a three-year period to adjust WSA’s hourly base pay from R33.40 to R41.25 in 2023 – a 23.5 percent increase.
“This investment will bring a meaningful benefit to the more than 20 000 store staff and go a long way towards our ‘just wage’ aspirations,” the group said.
It further said it introduced a “just wage” in 2019, a wage which would recognise the critical need to close the remuneration gap in the context of the socio-economic environment in South Africa.
Woolworths said executive directors and management levels did not receive a guaranteed pay increase in 2021, and it has approved a 4.5% increase for South Africa store staff and 2% for Australia for the 2022 financial year.
“In South Africa, we have maintained the principle that store staff are given an increase higher than management levels. Non-executive directors’ fees are proposed to increase by 4.25 percent for South Africa and CPI-related increases for Australian and UK based directors,” said the group.
