ALTOONA & WAWA, Pa. --Sheetz vs. Wawa. It’s a familiar rivalry. Customers are rabidly loyal to one or the other. The two major convenience-store operators, both based in Pennsylvania, are going head to head in the battle for employees, reported The Morning Call.
Sheetz said it will invest more than $15 million in 2016 to raise the wages of store employees across the company without cutting back on hours for full-time employees.
The starting hourly wage for sales associates will rise to $10 this month, with shift supervisors making $13 and assistant managers $16, according to the newspaper. The minimum wage in Pennsylvania is $7.25.
Wawa followed suit, said the report, raising its starting pay to $10.
“We are moving to $10 as our minimum rate for our customer service associates along with increasing their pay band overall,” Wawa spokesperson Lori Bruce told the newspaper. “All of our associates will be receiving a 5% increase, in addition to the annual merit increase provided this year.”
Wawa’s shift supervisors start at $13 an hour and its assistant general managers start at $17, both with a “strong bonus program on top of the rates,” she said.
Bruce told CSP Daily News that the move was preplanned and not in response to Sheetz's announcement.
"Wawa is proud to be an associate owned company, in addition to our leading pay and benefits, we offer associates an opportunity to share ownership through our company funded Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)," she added. "Currently associates own 41% of the company; annually an estimated 11% of company profits are contributed to participants in the ESOP. We also have a strong benefit offer and a competitive paid time off."
“The labor market conditions have changed; you are seeing Sheetz adjust,” Paul Harrington, director of the Center for Labor Markets & Public Policy at Drexel University, told the paper.
With 510 locations, Sheetz’s $15 million investment works out to about $29,000 in additional wages per location, the report said. A significant amount, but still a drop in the bucket when compared to the company’s $6.9 billion in annual revenues, Harrington said.
“If you want to maintain the quality of the staff, it makes sense to raise wages a little bit,” he said.
Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz operates more than 500 convenience stores in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and North Carolina.
Wawa, a chain of more than 700 convenience stores located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Florida, is based in Wawa, Pa.
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