Shoprite says it expects to create about 10,000 more jobs in the next 12 months as it plans to open 309 new stores across its brands, cementing its dominance as the country’s largest corporate employer in an economy that is shedding jobs.
CEO Pieter Engelbrecht said the target figure referred to direct jobs within the group, with many more supported indirectly through service providers such as cleaners, trolley collectors and security staff.
In the year to end-June, the group opened 281 new stores and created nearly 9,000 jobs. It spent almost R4.9bn on new stores and upgrades, and plans to leverage a further R7.9bn in the next financial year.
Shoprite’s new employee base far surpasses that of rivals, with the group managing to employ about 10% of Pick n Pay’s entire workforce in just one year.
Meanwhile, the country’s joblessness rate stood at 33% in the second quarter of 2025. While more people are now employed compared with pre-pandemic levels, a large portion of the population remains without paid work.
“In this year alone, we created 8,723 jobs that are people physically on our payroll today,” Engelbrecht told Business Day on Tuesday. “If we include the indirect jobs, that number is actually much bigger than what we report.”
The hiring spree comes after Shoprite reported another strong set of results, adding R20bn in annual sales and increasing customer visits by 200-million from the prior year.
Engelbrecht said Shoprite was the only local retailer still growing sales volumes, which had helped support suppliers and farmers.
He said the group’s competitive edge came from keeping its internal food inflation lower than the national average. Shoprite measures inflation based on actual customer baskets rather than Stats SA’s fixed list. At some point, it said, internal food inflation was as low as 1.9%.
“It’s not true that prices never come down,” Engelbrecht said. “In just one month, we had 13,300 items that were cheaper than the year before.”
Despite Shoprite’s R250bn in sales and market dominance, Engelbrecht described SA’s retail industry as “small and fragile”, stressing the need for responsible pricing and collaboration with suppliers.
He said Shoprite planned to deepen its push into adjacent businesses, including clothing, pet stores, outdoor outlets, and health and personal care. The group said on Tuesday the expansion efforts helped it achieve an 8.6% increase in revenue to R256.7bn in the year ended June, a milestone none of its rivals has achieved.
Group sales of merchandise rose 8.9% to a record R252.7bn. On average, this translates to more than R4.9bn worth of goods sold by the group each week.
Its core Shoprite supermarkets and discounter Usave contributed R116.6bn to sales, while its middle-income offering, Checkers, added a further R95.7bn and its on-demand app, Sixty60, boosted sales by 47.7% to R18.9bn.
“Checkers’ value-focused premium offer just goes from strength to strength. It continued to gain share, evidenced by sales growth of 13.8%, contributing an additional R11.6bn, taking it to an almost R100bn brand in its own right,” Engelbrecht said. “The gains are across the board but noteworthy this year was Checkers’ growth in fresh foods together with improvements in ranging and promotional execution.”
Headline earnings per share (HEPS) were up 15.8% to 1,372.1c, while profit rose 18.8% to R7.39bn.
A final dividend of 496c per share was declared, taking the full-year dividend to 781c from 712c a year ago.
By market close Shoprite’s share price had gained the most in 10 months, up 5.44% to R272.24.
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