Fair Work Commission rules some young retail workers will receive full adult pay rate

There’s a change coming that will have a significant impact on a group of retail workers – but not everyone will benefit.

Young retail workers across the country will be able to earn the full adult rate of pay after the Fair Work Commission replaced junior rates with the full adult pay rate for some levels.

The wages authority has ruled that junior employees working full-time at level four and above will no longer earn less than their adult counterparts.

It means thousands of young full-time workers will now earn the full adult rate of pay.

Around 10,000 young employees under 21 who are working at level four or above will benefit from the change.

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Some young workers in retail will get paid an adult hourly rate under the new changes. Picture: iStock

It could see them earn between $86 to $172 a week extra, depending on the age of the worker and the level they are on.

The union for retail, fast food, warehouse and online retail workers, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA), welcomes the move.

SDA national secretary Gerard Dwyer said this is a “big win” for young workers in the retail sector who he said are “an important part of the Australian workforce”.

The changes will come into effect in February 2021. Picture: iStock

Mr Dwyer said the move is “another important step” in securing fair pay for junior employees.

“Thousands of young workers will now earn the full adult rate of pay,” he said in a statement.

Mr Dwyer said the previous arrangements “discriminated against both adult and junior workers”.

“Junior employees could be favoured over adults because of the lower rates,” he said.

“On the other hand, it discriminated against junior workers because they were doing the work of an adult and getting a lower rate of pay.”

Some retail workers might be getting double the hourly pay under the new pay arrangement. Picture: iStock

Young workers in retail – those aged under 21 – get different pay rates for each age group.

If you’re 20 and a full-time worker at level four, you get 10 per cent less than an adult worker of the same level.

If you’re 19, it’s 20 per cent less and if you’re 18, you get 30 per cent less than the adult rate under the current work policy.

An adult on level four would get $862.50 a week as a full-time wage. But if you’re 20 years old with no more than six months’ experience, you would end up with $776.25 a week for doing the same job under the current policy.

The new arrangement means these full-time retail workers at level four or above would end up with the same rate as an adult worker.

The change is to come into effect in February 2021.