It’s quite a boon for the 8,000 sales assistants at the popular Marks & SPencer and Tesco stores who this week were awarded pay raises of €700 annually.
The move comes just weeks after it secured a 2pc wage increase for 13,000 staff at Tesco from next January. This followed a 2.5pc rise for over 3,000 staff at Marks and Spencer, to keep pace with inflation.
The pay rises at the British chain stores are having a knock on effect on big retailers. Mandate is optimistic that it will get rises for almost half its 45,000 members by next year.
It’s said that many of these retail employees are on relatively low pay of little over €20,000 a year, but are working harder than they were in the boom due to cuts in staff numbers and other cost savings, with many store employees enduring wage freezes for the past few years.
