• Pay is at the absolute bottom of the barrel for entry-level jobs - expect $7.25/hour if you're under 18 and no more than $8.50/hour if you have experience.
• No full-time jobs available anywhere unless you've been working at Kroger for years
• Raises are scarce: I worked there 9 months and took on a lot of responsibility in the bakery that I didn't have to take (including cake decorating), and my pay was only raised 10 cents. (Despite decorating most of the cakes, my pay was much, much lower than the head decorator).
• Higher management is out of touch and has no idea how to run the food-based departments.
• Union basically makes it impossible to fire you unless you're stealing. This means Kroger is full of employees doing the bare minimum, or are completely inept, including alcoholics, and can't fire them.
• If you're an honest worker, the union is a scam. They practically corner you and make you join and it's $8 a week you're paying, basically just to get a little pin for your name tag.
• ALWAYS understaffed. Expect 1 bagger for every 3 cashiers.
• If you work in a food service department, hours are nonexistent for part-timers unless it's a holiday. There were many weeks I got 10 hours or less.
• Unless you work in bakery, deli, Starbucks, or meat, you will have to help bagging or cashiering on the front end multiple times a day