Abstract
The Concept of purchasing power has been highly debated in France for the last few months. Because of a recent and substantial increase in prices, grocery retailers have been under suspicion of being the main engine of this inflation. Why have prices been increasing so quickly in the last few weeks? The French government is currently trying to increase competition and is considering raising regulations in the sector. Moreover very recently some secret agreements between firms in the supply sector were revealed. That is why in such a context, discount grocery retailers seem to be very attractive for numerous customers. However, Lidl one of Europe's leading grocery retailers, has been sued by many of its former employees for unacceptable working conditions and abusive layoffs. To what extent do Lidl's cheap prices benefit the customer? Has Lidl's social policy had an impact on the employment market? Because of the current debate on those questions, I wanted to study the human resources policy of Lidl while reminding all the constraints of such a competitive market. We will try to determine whether discounted prices are always tightly linked to discounted human resources practices.
