Staff Shortages And Cost Of Living Push Macdonalds, Inverness To Raise Pay To £11 An Hour As Energy Prices Soar

9th May 2022

Last month Macdonalds takeaway place in Inverness raised the pay rate to £11 per hour an Inverness.

Staff shortages in catering and cost of living rising seem to be pushing people to move on to find better rates of pay.

The big sign outside Madonalds Inverness last week showed that even after that rise and a month since the rise was announced they still have not filled all the vacancies.

The franchise is owned by Craigton Foods who in addition to Inverness have the franchises in Nairn and Fort William.

The rate for crew members is above both the current minimum wage of £6.83 per hour for those aged between 18 and 20 and the real living wage of £9.50 per hour for those aged over 23.

The move comes as inflation hits record highs and industries struggle due to labour shortages across the UK.

It looks more and more as if employer paying less than £11 an hour are going to struggle to find staff in coming months and years.

Retail union USDAW wants all companies to raise the base level of £12 per hour as a step towards £15.

Supermarkets are also seeing wages rise.
From July 1, the hourly pay for 120,000 Asda workers will rise from £9.66 to £10.10. The new pay is 60p higher than the living wage, an independently verified marker that is set at a rate to reflect the current cost of basic goods such as food and energy.
Coupled with a 10% discount in stores and a potential £400 a year bonus, Asda claims the new package is the best deal for staff among UK grocers.

Tesco
Britain's biggest supermarket Tesco on Thursday said it would give a 5.8% pay increase to store and fulfilment centre workers in a pay settlement which will be reviewed again next year due to the uncertain economic environment and high cost of living.

The new pay deal takes the pay of the hourly-paid workers to £10.10 an hour from £9.55 previously, following agreement with the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (USDAW), and will take effect from 24 July 2022.

There are still rumblings around in various sectors of strike action over pay rates which will intensify as family budgets come under more strain towards the October changes to the price cap on electricity and gas.

The prediction is that over 10 million people in the UK will be classified as below the poverty line. Government is coming under more pressure to alleviate the increases by that time.

The chief executive of Scottish Power has said energy price rises later this year are going to be "horrific". Keith Anderson told MPs at Westminster "so many people are really going to struggle".

Keith Anderson, chief executive of Scottish Power, told the BBC that another expected rise in energy bills in October to between £2,500 and £3,000 a year could see huge losses for suppliers and many customers unable to pay their bills.

He warned regulator Ofgem that setting the new price cap too low could risk suppliers collapsing or the foreign owned firms leaving the market.