Pay rise for NTUC FairPrice's non-exec staff

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http://www.todayonline.com/Hotnews/EDC120525-0000053/Pay-rise-for-NTUC-FairPrices-non-exec-staff

A day after the National Wages Council (NWC) released its recommendations, supermarket co-operative NTUC FairPrice announced yesterday that it will raise the pay of its non-executive staff from July - by as much as 15.8 per cent.

According to FairPrice, with the wage increment and adjustment, the monthly gross wage of a full-time, non-executive FairPrice staff - such as cashiers and retail assistants - will move up from a range of S$1,080 to S$2,095, to a range of S$1,200 to S$2,200.

A FairPrice spokesperson said that about half of its 8,000 staff will be eligible for the wage adjustment and increment.

"This excludes a very small handful of staff of less than 1 per cent who have hit their salary ceilings.

"Nonetheless, these staff will still enjoy various bonuses like the annual wage supplement, the variable bonus, performance bonus and the one-off special bonus which will be given later this year," she said.

Staff earning less than S$1,000 in basic monthly pay will see the biggest built-in wage increase of about S$140, which is almost three times higher than what the NWC recommended.

Commenting on the impact on the bottom line, FairPrice CEO (Singapore) Seah Kian Peng said: "While this wage boost will increase our manpower costs significantly, we feel that it is right to lift the wages of our staff as we employ innovative technologies to lift our productivity at the same time, so that we can continue to keep prices of daily essentials affordable for our customers."

All FairPrice staff will also receive a special one-off bonus. This is on top of the annual group and performance bonuses which are being computed based on a profit-sharing formula. FairPrice said it will announce details of the special bonus later.