​Costco Canada Gave Staff A Permanent Pandemic Raise & Now Some Cashiers Make $60K A Year

While other stores offered short-term pay increases to frontline employees during the COVID-19 pandemic, Costco Canada has decided to make their pandemic pay raise permanent.

Back in 2020, Canadian stores like Loblaws, Metro, Sobeys and Costco Canada introduced raises to help their front line employees during the pandemic. While some retailers walked back on these bonuses just months after implementing them, Costco has decided to make theirs permanent.

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According to the Toronto Star, the retail chain paid all frontline hourly employees its $2-per-hour pandemic bonus for almost a full year, before replacing it with a permanent raise of $1 per hour.

Thanks to this, Costco Canada employees now start at $16 per hour, while the average wage across all hourly workers is $23.71. After just six years with the company, a typical cashier can make more than $60,000 annually, in addition to benefits and paid sick leave.

While Sobeys has recently announced it will also be reinstating pandemic pay for frontline staff, Loblaws and Metro are yet to do the same.