WOOLWORTHS BOSS SIGNALS PAY RISE FOR STAFF
THE boss of Woolworths says it’s time for wages to rise so his staff can keep pace with the rising cost of living.
Speaking after Woolworths unveiled its latest quarterly sales performance, Brad Banducci said lifting wages wasn’t necessarily a “silver bullet” but the nation’s biggest retailer needed to make sure that its team members’ salaries and wages keep pace with the underlying increases in the cost of living. But this also needed to be balanced by delivering value to customers.
“We are very clear that we need to deliver value for our customers, we also need to make sure that our team salaries and wages keep pace with the underlying increases in the cost of living,” he said.
Woolworths employs about 180,000 workers and is the biggest private sector employer in Australia,
Mr Banducci said Woolworths was supporting the Australian Retailers Association’s position for an increase in team member wages that keeps pace with underlying cost-of-living increases.
Woolworths faced steadily increasing prices across its range during the March quarter.
Woolworths reported a rise in average shelf prices of 2.7 per cent for the three months to the end of March, which was below the 5.3 per cent grocery price inflation reported in the
March quarter CPI last week. Woolworths posted total sales of $15.123bn from continuing operations, up 9.7 per cent. Its total Australian food sales rose 5.4 per cent to
$11.4bn.
For its online division Woolies, sales rose 38.1 per cent to $1.127bn, representing 9.9 per cent of total Woolworths retail sales.
Its general merchandise retailer Big W booked a 3.5 per cent drop in sales to $989m.