Except for German-held discount store chain Lidl, salaries are around RON2,100 in net amount per month, close to the industry (wholesale and retail trade) average. The industry average may be raised by the pharmaceutical wholesalers or grain traders, which are included in the wholesale trade sector. In comparison, the net average wage in Romania stood at RON2,400 in 2017.
“Lidl has a deliberate and communicated salary policy. The company pays higher than market average for all types of personnel to stabilize the very high employee turnover in this sector,” says Raluca Parvu, business manager with BPI Group, a management and human resources consulting company.
Grocery retail is the sector with the highest employee turnover, as four out of ten people leave their employer every year. This is made even worse by the labor shortage in all sectors. Under the circumstances, the other retailers have been raising their pay and even more so in the past few years. Mega Image was paying RON850 in net amount per month, now it pays about RON2,100. The same goes for Kaufland, according to the existing data.
“There are raises in retail, but they have to be weighted with the average and minimum wage raises in the economy. Retailers have adjusted but many of them kept their pay within the industry average.”
Modern retail chains are among the biggest employers in Romania, with thousands of people each. The top five networks ZF looked at are currently employing about 50,000 people. Publicly available data show the average salaries hypermarket and supermarket chains pay are close to the national average wage after being kept closer to the minimum for a long time, since most employees are cashiers and store assistants.(EUR1=RON4.6434)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)