The pre-Christmas rush period typically means more employment, as retail chains take on extra staff to cope with holiday shoppers. But low pay and limited working hours often mean a less than festive season for many recruits.
Lindiwe Khumalo (not her real name) works as a cleaner for R1 300 a month. When she heard Edgars was hiring shop assistants to work for three months before Christmas, she leapt at the chance.
Khumalo was one of about 50 people scheduled for an interview on the same day. Those who had work took the day off or called in sick, and paid for a taxi ride into central Cape Town.
First was a basic numeracy test: “If you get a R50 gift voucher for a R35 purchase, how much change should you give?” As one of the few whose maths was good enough, Khumalo was given a short interview. Finally, she was asked come back for two days’ training, paid at R5 an hour.
While the training might have been worth the risk of calling in sick at her job, Khumalo baulked at the news that the most she could hope to earn for each of the three months’ casual work was R800. That worked out to R10,21 an hour, 20 hours a week — the legal minimum a shop assistant can be paid in terms of the sectoral determination.
“I’d rather stay and clean toilets for R1 300,” she said.
The reason many retail chains employ only casual workers, for fewer than 27 hours a week, is that beyond this threshold employees must be paid the minimum monthly wage. For an urban shop assistant, this is R1 992,44.
Casual, benefitless jobs may be ideal for students, but they are also the primary employment of many adults unable to find full-time work.
“Casual workers are sometimes the only household income earners,” said Bridget Kenny, sociology lecturer at Wits University, who has done research on employment patterns in Gauteng supermarkets. “They feel constrained in looking for other part-time employment because their employer expects them to be available on short notice.”
Not all of South Africa’s major retailers pay the lowest permissible wage. Pick ‘n Pay pays R10,89 an hour to its “variable time” employees, who work between 60 and 196 hours a month. They also receive a variety of benefits, including a pension.
Another category at Pick ‘n Pay is that of the “occasional time” workers, who receive no benefits but a higher hourly wage — R13,46 as a till packer and R15,50 as a cashier. They work no more than 24 hours a month.
Shoprite seems content to stick to the letter of law. The group will not disclose wage levels, but Shoprite payroll manager John van den Heuvel said the company paid “according to the sectoral determination”.
The statutory minimum wage, covering the retail and wholesale trades, was promulgated in February last year. It applies in the absence of an industry-wide collective bargaining agreement.
It has improved casuals’ lot. Said Kenny: “In 2000 casual workers from a major company earned on average R7 an hour. But this ranged from just over R5 for till packers to just over R11 for casual supervisors. They were typically scheduled for fewer than 24 hours, and earned about R500 a month. They had no benefits or basic conditions of employment, like paid leave.”
Retail chains are now required by law to provide basic rights, such as annual leave, to anyone working more than 27 hours a week, while those employed for fewer hours must be given at least the stipulated minimum wage.
General shop assistants or packers cannot earn less than R8,08 an hour, rising to R8,79 on February 1 next year — a 61% increase on the R5 paid to many four years ago.
Casuals are handicapped by the fact that retail and wholesale sectors are generally poorly paid. Kenny said: “According to the sector skills authority, wholesale and retail workers earn, on average, some of the lowest hourly wages of all unionised sectors, excluding domestic and agriculture.”
A shop assistant working just under the 27-hour-a-week ceiling takes home about R1 000 a month.
Shopfloor pay restraint does not appear to extend to top management. Pick ‘n Pay CE Sean Sommers took home a total salary of R2,4-million last year, excluding bonuses, stock options and other perks, according to the Financial Mail’s annual CEO pay package survey. Steve Ross, head of Edgars’s parent company Edcon, was paid R6,5-million — a 36% increase.
At Woolworths, where CEO Simon Susman’s salary rose 20% to R1,8-million, casuals employed for the summer season will get the new minimum wage of R11,11 an hour.
Woolworths Christmas rush recruits will be on the “flexi eight” programme, meaning they will be employed for eight hours a day, three days a week. This will giving them a total of 24 hours a week; safely under the 27-hour threshold. The monthly wage will amount to just R1 066,56.