A North Wales bakery is pledging to pay 16-year-old school leavers the full adult rate of the Real Living Wage.
The Jones Village Bakery in Wrexham says it will offer the wage even though itsi not legally obliged to. The teenagers will be earning £12.60 an hour instead of £7.55, which is the National Minimum Wage rate for their age. Over the course of a year it will amount to an extra £10,000.
The firm is recruiting, with 50 jobs becoming available in the next two months and a further 50 expected in the New Year.
The bakery said new recruits would also qualify for staff benefits including discounts of up to six per cent on their weekly supermarket shop, as well as offers for holidays, gym membership, meals in restaurants and trips to the cinema.
Employees are also entitled to a 30 per cent discount on Jones Village Bakery's award-winning products, including bread, crumpets, scones and pies.
Machine operator Josh Williams, 19, knew all about the Village Bakery before he joined four years ago because his dad, Matty, also works there.
He said:
“I was doing car mechanics at Coleg Cambria but I wasn’t really enjoying it and I was lucky to get a job here and I’m really enjoying it.
“The training here is excellent and if you work hard you’re rewarded with the adult rate for doing the job. It’s a place with great career prospects.
“I’ve also referred six of my friends to work here and my sister, Leah, started here last week.”
Tilly Squire, 20, who works at a technologist in the New Product Development team, started there straight from school as a 16-year-old.
She said:
“I have really enjoyed working here from the first day. I never thought I would achieve what I have done.
“I started in production and then I was chosen to go on the apprenticeship scheme and I joined the New Product Development team from there.
“I was shortlisted for the Rising Star Award at the Welsh Food and Drink Awards and as a finalist I got to go and we all went as a team to Llandudno.
“I got to take my mum and dad as well which was nice because they were very proud.
“I chose not to go to college but I got to continue my learning here while still being paid.”
CEO Simon Thorpe says “investing in young people” has been a key factor in the success of the Village Bakery.
He said:
“We’re always looking for the next generation of talent and if we expect them to come in and work hard, then it’s right that we reward them properly.
“Everybody doing an adult job deserves an adult wage. If you work hard you can expect to be looked after by the business.
“Tilly and Josh are role models for the type of people we are looking for.
“They both joined us when they were 16 and to see how they’ve progressed and developed a career is wonderful to see.
“People with the right attitude will thrive here and we will look after them.
“We have a long-standing grow-your-own policy and all of our bakery managers have come from within.
“That ethos has served us well and it is helping us lay the foundations for the future now.
“Those people are the Village People. Quality is at the heart of everything we do and that’s not just about having the best equipment. It’s all about the people who make it happen. That’s where the magic is.”
It was a point echoed by HR manager Jason Page who said the company had been a Real Living Wage employer for many years.
He said:
“We want to make sure we are a company of choice and that when you come here and do a full week’s work you will get £12.60 an hour as a minimum.
“It’s our introductory rate of pay so we are looking for people who have an appetite for hard work and to learn new skills.
“We will train them and going forward will have higher rates of pay reflective of skilled work.
“There are opportunities to gain professional qualifications with our apprenticeship scheme.
“Fast food restaurants and other employers are perfectly entitled to pay the National Minimum Wage rate for 16 year olds which is £7.55 per hour but we have opted to take a different approach.
“We do not look at age as a determining factor. If you’re here contributing and working hard it makes no difference if you’re 16 years old we’ll pay you the adult Real Living Wage.”
He added:
“We’re not just looking for school leavers. We’re looking for the right people, whatever their age, so long as they have the right attitude and they want to work hard.
“As well as production jobs, we have careers in IT, we have careers on the commercial side and engineering, in finance, HR and so on.
“There are great opportunities here to progress and make sure that working here provides a good standard of living.
“The vast majority of people who work here are local to Wrexham so money we pay in wages is recycled in the local economy.”
Anybody interested in applying for a job should send an email in the first instance to recruitment@villagebakery.co.uk and leave a name and telephone number.
