Photo/Illutration The Higashi-Yodogawa branch of Aeon Style in Osaka operated by Aeon Retail Co. (Provided by Aeon Retail Co.)

The supermarket giant Aeon Retail Co. is eliminating the wage gap between part-time employees in charge of sales floors and permanent employees who do the same job.

The move comes as the retail industry faces a severe labor shortage and struggles to retain employees due to its high turnover rate.

Aeon Retail, a core company of the major retailer Aeon Group, started rolling out the new system this month.

Officials said basic payments, benefits, seasonal bonuses and retirement payments for these part-timers are now offered at the same rate as those for permanent employees who do the same job.

And these employees can move up the ladder without having to become permanent employees or relocate.

While they will still not make as much money as permanent staff unless they work the same amount of hours, it is rare for a large company to pay part-timers the same as permanent employees in wages, retirement payments or seasonal bonuses and offer them similar opportunities.

Aeon Group has the largest number of non-permanent employees among all Japanese companies. Aeon Retail employs around 120,000 workers, of which about 73,000 are part-timers.

Aeon Retail said it hopes to motivate its part-timers and retain them by allowing them to advance in their careers without having to relocate, even if they do not work full time.

Experts said this might just spur some of its competitors to treat their non-permanent staff better, too.

The government has been pressing for this sort of change in the economy, declaring a goal to have companies establish “equal pay for equal work.”

According to Aeon Retail’s human resource department, the company introduced the new system because it is difficult to rely on only permanent employees to manage its grocery store sales spaces, and this allows it to move more part-timers into core roles.

An official said the company cares strongly “about achieving ‘equal pay for equal work’” because it must ensure its network of supermarkets in Japan can run sustainably.

Aeon Retail expanded its internal qualification system, already used by permanent employees, to also cover part-timers who do the same jobs as its “area-limited permanent employees.”

Its “area-limited” laborers are those who only work in stores they can commute to from home and are not ordered by the company to relocate elsewhere.

This change is intended to allow more of its employees to get promotions or better pay even if they are not full time.

To qualify for the better pay and benefits, part-timers must first have passed a test to manage a supermarket sales space and gained certain key job titles, such as “manager” or “leader,” and must work 120 hours or more per month.

It will start by covering just 42 part-timers who passed their promotion tests last fall.

The company plans to increase the number of part-timers who will benefit from the new system by 400 or so every year.

They will also be entitled to the same amount in the “childrearing support benefit,” which is for supporting employees in raising children still too young to attend elementary school, along with the “child education benefit.”

Previously, the company only paid part-time workers small amounts of money as a thank-you gift instead of seasonal bonuses, but will stop this custom and pay it out at the same rate as permanent employees.

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