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Sainsbury’s is to reward staff with an inflation-busting pay rise after they helped the supermarket deliver its “biggest-ever” Christmas.
The group announced this morning that it will increase wages of 118,000 hourly-paid colleagues across Sainsbury’s and Argos by 5%.
CEO Simon Roberts said: “Our people are fundamental to achieving our ‘Next Level’ Sainsbury’s plan and we are pleased to announce that we will raise pay for our hourly-paid colleagues by five per cent in the year ahead, split into two separate increases to help manage a particularly tough cost inflation environment. We believe in rewarding our colleagues well for delivering leading service and productivity and we will be the best paying UK grocer from March.”
It comes after Sainsbury’s boosted sales over the six weeks to 4 January by 3.8% year on year.
However, Argos proved to be a black spot on the record results, with like-for-like growth of just 1.1% over an extended eight-week period, which included sales from Black Friday.
A full story on Sainsbury’s Christmas trading update can be read here over on thegrocer.co.uk
Morning update
Investors continued to give supermarkets a frosty reception despite a generally good performance over Christmas.
Shares in Sainsbury’s - which fell yesterday by 3.2% - are down a further 2.8% as markets opened this morning.
Shareholders are likely worried about the ongoing difficulties at Argos amid subdued consumer sentiment.
After being hammered by 8% yesterday, M&S slipped another 0.4% this morning, with Tesco down 0.8% to 365p.
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