The minimum wage is set to increase on 1 March 2022 from R21.79 to R23.19. You can read more about that here.
Many baristas are paid minimum wage, though we want to move as an industry to view this as skilled labour, rather than entry level. In a barista group forum it has come to light that a barista with 5 years of experience generally expects an hourly rate of R30.
To find out if this is accurate and to empower baristas and cafe owners to find fair working wages and conditions, you can use the Barista Wage Calculator.
It is designed to gather data and see how much baristas of a similar experience level are earning. The more baristas and cafe owners that use it, the better the data becomes. The goal of the tool is to find ways of increasing Barista Wages through training and access to information, with a view to connecting baristas and cafe owners through a jobs board in the next iteration of the tool.
