Aldi has increased it pay for store colleagues for the second time this year, reinforcing its position as the UK’s best-paying supermarket.
The discounter’s new national minimum rate is now £12.40 an hour for store assistants and deputy store managers – up from the previous £12.00 rate, and currently the highest level entry pay to be paid by a British supermarket.
The new pay increases will also take hourly rate of store assistants and deputy store managers for those within the M25 from £13.55 to £13.65.
Aldi UK and Ireland chief executive officer Giles Hurley said: “We firmly believe that our colleagues are the best in the business, so it is only right that they remain the best-paid and we are committed to never being beaten on pay by any other supermarket.”
Subscribe to Grocery Gazette for free
Sign up here to get the latest grocery and food news each morning
“Our Store Operations colleagues play an integral part in our ever-increasing popularity among shoppers and our continued investment in their pay is another way to thank them for the role they play in making Aldi what it is today.”
The new increases follow in the wake of Aldi in February becoming the first UK supermarket to pay all store and warehouse staff at least £12.00 an hour nationally.
In recent weeks, other supermarkets have also followed suit to increase their staff pay in light of the incoming new national minimum wage of £11.44 per hour for over 21s.
This latest pay increase will take Aldi’s investment in staff pay to £79m this year, as the discounter also gears up for the creation of a further 5,500 new jobs in the UK.
Other pay incentives Aldi remains the only supermarket to offer include paid breaks, for which the grocer says for the average worker represents an additional £900 a year.
