Salaried Tesco workers have been forced to take a pay cut in real-terms as the retailer looks to offer larger wage increases for lower-paid workers amid the cost-of-living crisis.
Team managers at the UK’s largest supermarket, who typically earn around £30,000 a year, say they have received pay rises of around 3% this year. The real-terms cut in their salaries have come as store management they have seen a significant increase in their workload because of job cuts.
“We all feel very let down. Tesco is publicly stating that it understands how its colleagues are struggling yet appears to be excluding a whole chunk of store staff,” one team manager said.
A Tesco spokesperson said the company was working hard to support staff: “We benchmark pay for all roles at Tesco to ensure they are competitive against the market and we’re also mindful of the broader economic pressures our colleagues face.
“Our team managers do brilliant work, day in day out, and in addition to their pay increase this year, they also received a bonus of 4.5% in May. We’re currently speaking to both colleagues and our union representatives to understand how we might be able to support these colleagues further.”
Tesco is also bringing forward its next pay review to January, about three months earlier than usual, meaning hourly paid workers can expect a pay-rise much sooner.
“We have consistently raised the issue of pay for salaried employees within Tesco and we are pressing the business to do more for these colleagues too, given the extent and depth of the cost-of-living crisis,” national officer for the shopworkers’ union Usdaw, Daniel Adams said.
He added: “We continue to relay the feedback of members to the business and will be discussing the situation further with the business at our next national consultative meeting.”
The supermarket said earlier this week that the basic hourly rate of pay in Tesco stores would increase by 20p to £10.30 (or £10.98 in London), taking the total pay rise this year to 8%.
As inflation nears 10% and is forecast to hit 11% next month, more job losses are expected as Tesco looks to ease the squeeze on its operating costs.
