A young man has left Australians stunned after revealing the shocking hourly rate he receives for stocking Coles shelves.
The student, who was interviewed by job app Getahead, said he is paid $40 an hour while stocking the supermarket in Toowong, southwest of Brisbane.
He said working the “night stocking” shift three times a week between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. means he gets paid about $8 more than those who restock shelves during the day.
“The pay is pretty good for the lack of skill you need,” he said in a TikTok video.
“It’s also silly: You walk in, listen to music (and) put some coke on the shelves.”
Coles’ retail enterprise deal increases the casual staff rate by 50 per cent to work between 6 and 11pm Monday to Friday, while full- and part-timers only get 25 per cent.
Those rates are increased by an additional 25 percent for all Sunday hours, meaning casual workers get 75 percent of the load, while full- and part-time workers get 50 percent.
The wage is about $16 an hour more than the minimum wage and left Australians surprised by how simple the role is.
A young student has revealed he is paid $40 an hour to stock shelves overnight at a Coles in Toowong, south-west of Brisbane’s CBD (pictured).
“He does the same thing as me standing for 10 hours straight without sitting down and with constant interaction with the client,” one tiktok the user wrote.
A second social media user said there was “no way” he would earn that much for the job.
“(I) used to work for Woolies at night and had a base of 22 and rose slightly after 8pm,” they wrote.
But another user responded saying “I had an interview for Coles and the base rate was $32 (and) $8 a night seems about right.”
“Woolworths and Coles night make money,” one Instagram user wrote.
Even if the student works only 20 hours a week, their $20,000 income would still be higher than that of the average Australian student, according to research by Discoverer.
The research, published in November, found that the average student has an income of just over $16,000, putting them well below the poverty line of $612.47.
It also means that students can only contribute about $300 a month to their savings, a fraction of full-time employees of about the same age.
This generous salary is due to the fact that their salary increases by up to 50 percent for working after 8:00 pm, according to the supermarket’s business agreement (file image)
Financial strains, coupled with a full-time university workload, have also led to a serious decline in the overall happiness of students compared to full-time employees.
While we can only speculate about the various factors that might make full-time employees happier than students, research consistently shows a link between overall happiness and financial security.’ Finder analyst Sophie Wallis said.
‘Finder data shows that students’ most stressful expenses are rent or mortgage payments, food, gas and cell phone bills.
“Students who rent are also more likely to say they have difficulty paying their rent than those who work full time.”
However, their struggles don’t end after leaving college: recent indexations have increased the total amount of student debt to a whopping $185.6 billion.
“Since 2012, the average outstanding debt has increased by 86 percent, while the consumer price index (CPI), a measure of the cost of goods and services, has grown by 19 percent during the same period,” it said Mrs. Wallis.
“Furthermore, the percentage of people with more than $40,000 in debt has doubled, from 11 percent in 2012 to 29 percent in 2023.”