Selfridges raises pay to align with London Living Wage
Selfridges has boosted its shop floor workers' pay by more than 6% to align with the Real Living Wage, which is set at £14.80 per hour in London and £13.45 for the rest of the UK.
The department store introduced the independently calculated Real Living Wage, which is a voluntary pay measure and not mandatory for employers in London, from 1 April.
Selfridges joins a number of UK retailers, including M&S, John Lewis and Primark, that have introduced pay boosts for their retail employees.
The pay boost coincides with the government's mandatory increase to the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage starting 1 April. For those aged 21 and over, pay rose by 4.1% to £12.71 per hour.
In March, Marks & Spencer announced that it would increase pay for its 55,000 retail staff by at least 6.4%, raising wages to £13.41 an hour nationwide, or £14.74 per hour for those based in London.
In the same month, Primark also said it would increase its hourly pay for all retail employees to £13 across England, Scotland and Wales, while workers in London will receive £13.71 per hour. The John Lewis Partnership also pledged to hike pay for its shop workers by 6.9%.
Also in March, the government published a list of 389 employers from across the UK that it was publicly calling out for failing to pay workers the legally binding National Minimum Wage. The list named both Harvey Nichols and J.D. Williams, although both companies assert that they did not deliberately breach National Minimum Wage regulations.
The publication of the company list forms part of the government's renewed attention to the issue of minimum wage compliance, and on 7 April it launched an enforcement body called the Fair Work Agency, bringing workers’ rights enforcement under one roof for the first time.
Earlier this month, Selfridges unveiled its 25,000 sq ft members’ club, 40 Duke, described as “a hybrid of personal shopping, cultural programming and social space” and providing “experience-led engagement”.
