So Wal-Mart raises their wages above minimum (and also, I’ve learned, gave a 2% raise across the board to those above the minimum, which is definitely the right thing to do!)  and many companies are following suit but evidently Dollar General is not one of them.  Since CEO Rick Dreiling was famous at Longs for cutting expenses I’m sure that’s not a big surprise.

     At least the store managers will be happy to get more labor hours (at least temporarily, these things tend to go back to normal after a while…) but the message to the employees of “We’re not going to pay you more, just let you work more” somehow doesn’t sound very motivating.

Dollar General will expand hours, not wages

Goodlettsville, Tenn. – Dollar General Corp. plans to increase employee income by making more working hours available to them, as opposed to raising salaries. Seeing a need to improve its stores in the face of expanded competition from the merging Family Dollar Stores Inc. and Dollar Tree Inc., Dollar General hopes to keep shelves better stocked with more labor hours.

Family Dollar also anticipates a tightening market for retail associates in the wake of chains like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Gap Inc. increasing employee salaries. Currently, Dollar General starts most part-time associates at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, but gives them the opportunity to increase that to $9 per hour after five months on the job. No full-time employees are paid minimum wage.

Dollar General expects to report a flat operating margin in fiscal 2015 due to the increase in employee hours.