Lidl workers get £1200 pay rise as supermarket pays recommended living wage

The move means Lidl will become the first UK supermarket to implement the minimum wage as recommended by the Living Wage Foundation.

The wage is in excess of the the National Living Wage as required by the UK Government, which was set out in Chancellor George Osborne’s July Budget at £7.20 an hour from April 2016 for people aged over 25.

However, from October, Lidl UK employees will earn a minimum of £8.20 an hour across Scotland, England and Wales, and £9.35 an hour in London, the supermarket said.

However, the pay rise will not apply in Northern Ireland.

The Foundation will announce a change in its recommended rates in November and Lidl said that if the Living Wage Foundation raised its recommended rate in its annual announcement in November, the supermarket would adjust its minimum wage accordingly.

Currently, Lidl pays its staff a minimum of £7.30 an hour and £8.03 an hour inside London.

The Living Wage Foundation’s current recommended minimal hourly rate is £7.85, and £9.15 inside London.

Lidl said its new pay rate would amount to an average wage increase of £1,200 a year, “with 53 per cent of Lidl UK’s 17,000 workforce and all age brackets benefiting from the rise”.

Lidl in Northern Ireland said it had increased wages in August “in line with the proposed living wage for Northern Ireland”.

However, it has not yet disclosed the minimum rate it pays in Northern Ireland.

The chief executive of Lidl UK, Ronny Gottschlich, said: “Lidl employees will be amongst the best paid in the supermarket sector.”

He said the company wanted to share its “success” with the staff.

It now had 5.5 million customers every week and planned to expand.

“Recently we announced we could easily imagine another 280 stores in London alone and between 1,200 and 1,500 stores in our store portfolio.”

Mr Gottschlich added: “There aren’t any patches where we can say we don’t want to expand anymore. There is potential in almost every single town.”

Welcoming the news, the director of the Living Wage Foundation, Rhys Moore, said: “We are thrilled. We’ve been working with and trying to persuade the retail sector to commit to pay the living wage rates rather than National Minimum Wage .

“None of the big four supermarkets currently pay the living wage rates, and the BRC are very behind the curve on this. Lidl is demonstrating this commitment to staff, and customers want to know that they’re shopping in places which treat their staff well.”

The BRC said there was a lack of evidence to support the implementation of a minimum wage.

In a statement, a spokesperson said: “Whatever approach retailers take to their total reward packages, the real key to raising more people out of low pay will rest in increasing productivity.

“This is an area where there is a lack of detailed evidence and one which we are working on understanding better.”