Ikea announced that from April 2016, its 9,000 UK workers will make at least £7.85 ($12.22 USD) an hour. However, employees in London will receive £9.15 an hour.
Earlier this month, George Osborne, the Chancellor, announced a new compulsory living wage of £7.20 an hour. He said that workers who are 25 and over will need to be paid at least that much, and the rate will rise to more than £9 an hour by 2020.
This latest move by Ikea comes just a month after it decided to raise rages for workers in the United States. The company plans on paying U.S. workers $11.87 per hour, starting in January 2016. When that happens, workers will be making more than $4 more than the federal minimum wage.
Gillian Drakeford, the country manager of IKEA in the UK and Ireland, said the company is a value-driven organization, and it is guided by its vision to create a better everyday life for people, and this includes its co-workers. Drakeford continued to say the company believes its inner strength is its people, so it was only right to provide a meaningful wage that supports the cost of living.
The director of Living Wage Foundation, Rhys Moore, said that they were happy that Ikea has announced it would be increasing the minimum wage for its employees. Moore said that Ikea’s move is a major step of the Living Wage movement.
