Aldi raises pay a second time in Britain this year, to £10.50, amid cost-of-living crisis

Pay rise will cover about 26,000 employees, costing company £43m

Two out of three shoppers in Britain visited an Aldi or Lidl in the 12 weeks to July 10 amid soaring food price inflation, data shows

Aldi is giving its staff in Britain a pay rise for the second time this year as the discount supermarket attracts more shoppers seeking to cope with the higher cost of living.

Starting in September, Aldi will pay store workers at least £10.50 (€12.38) an hour and £11.95 in London, the highest pay among supermarkets in Britain. 

The 40 pence rise also applies to breaks in shifts and will cover about 26,000 employees, costing Aldi £43m. 

It follows February’s hike, in which the company raised employee pay to £10.10 an hour, up from £9.55, and £11.55 in London, up from £11.07.

British consumers are increasingly choosing discount supermarkets and buying own-label goods rather than branded products as they try to save money on their weekly shop. 

Two out of three shoppers in Britain visited an Aldi or Lidl in the 12 weeks to July 10 amid soaring food price inflation, recent Kantar data shows.

In that period, sales at Lidl and Aldi jumped almost 14% and 11.3% respectively, while sales fell at most major supermarket chains in Britain. 

Aldi is close to knocking Morrisons off its perch as Britain's fourth-largest supermarket, with a 9.1% market share compared with Morrisons’ 9.4%. Aldi has more than 970 stores across Britain.

Employee pay at supermarkets has become a hot topic. Earlier this month, Sainsbury won a battle against a group of shareholders calling on Britain's second-largest grocer to commit to wage levels calculated by the Living Wage Foundation, a campaigning organisation. 

Sainsbury said it already paid its employees the living wage and urged investors to reject the move, arguing it would hand too much control to a third party. 

• Bloomberg