Best & Less Pay Rates 2026: Store, Casual & Junior Pay

Best & Less is the value clothing chain with stores across the country, selling kids', women's and men's apparel and baby goods. Store teams are mostly casual and part-time sales and stockroom staff, with a store manager and a small number of permanent supervisors.

Best & Less store pay follows the General Retail Industry Award 2020. The award's classification ladder, junior percentages and weekend penalties below are the minimum any Best & Less payslip must meet, whether or not an enterprise agreement applies to your store.

The federal awards relevant to Best & Less roles:

• General Retail Industry Award 2020 (MA000004)

Workforce snapshot. In its 2024-25 report to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, BEST & LESS GROUP HOLDINGS PTY LTD declared 3,338 employees across 2 reporting entities — 51.2% casual and 89.3% women, with 476 in management roles. Source: WGEA 2025 Public Data File, data.gov.au (CC-BY 3.0 AU).

From 1 July 2026 the General Retail Industry Award 2020 (MA000004) adult minimums are:

If you're 21 or older and your payslip shows less than Level 1, something is wrong.

Source: Fair Work Commission modern awards pay database, current-operative rates (1 July 2026 annual wage review). Casual figures add the 25% casual loading.

The General Retail Industry Award pays juniors a percentage of the Level 1 adult rate. From 1 July 2026 the junior minimums are:

• Under 16: $12.51/hr
• 16 years: $13.91/hr
• 17 years: $16.69/hr
• 18 years: $19.47/hr
• 19 years: $22.25/hr
• 20 years (first 6 months with the employer): $25.03/hr
• 20 years (after 6 months — full adult rate): $27.81/hr

Your rate must step up from the first full pay period after each birthday. Casual juniors add the 25% loading on top of these figures. An enterprise agreement's junior scale must leave you better off than this ladder overall.

The retail award floor for permanent adult staff outside ordinary spans, at Level 1:

• Saturday: 125% — $34.76/hr
• Sunday: 150% — $41.71/hr
• Public holiday: 225% — $62.57/hr

Casuals are paid 150% of the ordinary rate on Saturday, 175% on Sunday and 250% on public holidays (those percentages already include the casual loading). Overtime for permanents runs at 150% for the first three hours and 200% after. Price a specific roster with our penalty rates calculator.

As at 6 September 2026, our corpus of 14,141 federally registered enterprise agreements holds no current agreement for Best & Less. That usually means one of three things: the employer pays on the award (or on individual contracts above it), the agreement covering you is registered under a different entity name (check the employer name on your payslip and search our agreements database), or — for state public-sector employers — pay is set by a state award or agreement outside the federal register. If you have a copy of an agreement that names Best & Less, it beats the award figures above.

The patterns worth checking on a Best & Less payslip:

• Junior step-ups missed — birthday rises and the 20-year-old six-month step to the full adult rate.
• Level 1 for higher-level work — keyholding, opening/closing, running a department or regularly supervising others is Level 3–4 territory.
• Weekend penalties absorbed — a flat rate covering Saturday and Sunday shifts has to actually beat the penalty mix for your roster.
• Unpaid time — till counts, close-downs, bag checks and stocktake after the doors shut are work time, and short casual shifts must meet the award's three-hour minimum.

Match your payslip to your classification in the agreement (or the award tables above), and price any gap with our back-pay calculator. Raise it in writing with payroll or your manager first — most underpayments are fixed at that step. Unresolved, the Fair Work Ombudsman (13 13 94) recovers underpayments at no cost, up to six years back, and your union can run the claim for you. Not sure which instrument covers you? Ask our AI advisor with your role and location.