Carrefour Taiwan is planning to raise wages for full-time entry-level employees by 10 percent on average starting from next month in a bid to retain workers amid a labor shortage in the local service sector, the hypermarket brand said on Wednesday.
In addition, Carrefour said it would introduce other incentives, such as a bonus equivalent to half-a-month’s salary for full-time entry-level employees and a more than 3 percent wage hike based on job performance later next year.
The company has a sound performance evaluation mechanism in place to protect employees’ interests, it said.
Photo: CNA
The hypermarket operator said it would provide better compensation than the Ministry of Labor has regulated to meet market standards, and boost welfare and benefits for employees, referring to the government’s latest minimum wage hike of 4.05 percent for next year.
The company plans to spend several hundred millions of New Taiwan dollars on wage hikes and bonuses next year, it said.
It said the increase in compensation represents an effort to make the company the top choice for those interested in joining the local retail sector.
The wage hikes were planned even though Carrefour still incurred a loss of NT$1 billion (US$31.92 million) in the first nine months of this year.
Uni-President Group (統一集團) chairman Alex Lo (羅智先) last month said the new management would try to ensure the hypermarket chain improves its bottom line. Uni-President Group completed its acquisition of a 49.5 percent stake in Carrefour Taiwan earlier this year to bring the retailer fully under the group’s corporate umbrella.
Similar to Carrefour, PX Mart Co (全聯實業), one of the leading supermarket chains in the country, said it would continue its annual wage hike program by raising employee salaries by about 4 percent on average to tackle the ongoing labor shortage.
PX Mart said there are a total of 350 store managers who would receive NT$1 million in annual salary under the annual wage hike program.
Speaking with reporters, PX Mart president Tony Tsai (蔡篤昌) on Tuesday said that the staff shortage at the supermarket chain’s stores is currently about 20 percent, adding that the retailer has introduced an automated billing system in some of its stores to ease the impact of the labor shortage.
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