How much money cashiers are paid at South Africa’s largest retailers

South Africa’s largest retailer in terms of market capitalisation, turnover and employees, Shoprite has published its integrated annual report for 2022, highlighting its remuneration structure.

“Remuneration is one pillar in our approach to providing a holistic employee value proposition. Other pillars include performance and recognition, the work environment, career development and benefits. These encompass skills development opportunities, educational loans and bursary benefits, employee discounts and job-specific incentives for qualifying employees,” it said.

While supermarkets remain some of the largest employers in South Africa, there is a growing gap between the highest and lowest-paid workers. The government is working on regulations proposing that companies disclose pay gaps between their directors and workers.

Shoprite said that fair and responsible pay has been a key focus area throughout 2022, with particular attention being placed on investing in and bettering the lives of our frontline employees. In May, the retailer established its own internal minimum wage at R25.10 per hour, above the prescribed national minimum wage of R23.19

In line with its ‘year of the cashier campaign’ the group introduced a separate cashier wage of R28.00 per hour,

Rival retailer Pick n Pay said it utilises REMchannel national surveys to annually benchmark remuneration against the national and retail markets for employees below senior executive level. The group said it benchmarks its remuneration policy against 10 large South African listed retail companies:

• Clicks
• Dis-Chem
• Foschini
• Massmart
• Mr Price
• Pepkor
• Shoprite
• Spar
• Truworths
• Woolworths

Woolworths commenced with the concept of a ‘just wage’ in 2019, “a wage which would recognise the critical need to address the disposable income of our store staff and to reduce the remuneration gap in the context of the socio-economic environment in South Africa”.

It said that one of the intents of the ‘just wage’ is to deliberately move away from the minimum wage legislative requirements to providing a living wage to its more than 20,000 store staff.

“Last year, we made a commitment to 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% increase.

“We are pleased that, effective 1 April 2022, our hourly rate now is R36.55 – 21.0% above the Retail sector minimum wage and 57.6% above the SA minimum wage. A further adjustment as per our normal salary review cycle is effective in October 2022,” said Woolworths.

The Employment and Labour department published the sectoral determinations for workers in South Africa’s wholesale and retail sectors in March.

These wages establish the minimum baseline across the sector, and workers can earn significantly more based on their position and the company that they work for.

Workers are also paid in accordance with what part of South Africa they are based in.

The below table shows the monthly wages for workers in both Area A and Area B: