Amazon announced on April 28 that it will raise wages for more than 500,000 of its employees. Specifically, the Jeff Bezos will increase hourly wages by $0.50 to $3for more than half a million employees in the United States, said Darcie Henry, Amazon's vice president of global human resources, in a post shared on the company's website. Amazon will spend more than $1 billion to increase the wages of these workers, Henry said.
The wage increases will begin to be implemented from mid-May or, at the latest, from early June of this year, according to Henry.
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The raises are intended to incentivize hiring tens of thousands more workers across the U.S. Amazon has already expanded its workforce to more than 1.3 million people globally in 2020, hiring 500,000 new workers as it tries to handle a surge in demand and online orders brought on by the COVID-19. The wage increases could help the company attract additional employees amid a tight labor market that has left other businesses, such as restaurants, struggling to find workers.
As the economy begins to reopen, some businesses say they are struggling to find workers, pointing to expanded unemployment benefits as a possible reason for the staffing shortage. Critics say employers should consider raising wages to attract workers.
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Amazon raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour for all its U.S. employees in 2018 after pressure from politicians and labor groups. The company is now focusing on the Raise the Wage Act , a bill backed by President Joe Biden and leading Democrats that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour from $7.25 an hour by 2025. Amazon also said it set the $15 minimum wage as part of its argument against a (failed) effort to unionize its workers following a vote at its Alabama warehouse earlier this month.
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The e-commerce is the second-largest private sector employer in the U.S. — after Walmart, the world’s leading supermarket chain — with more than 800,000 employees nationwide. Walmart, which has been on a strong performance streak, also announced in February that it would raise the wages of 425,000 of its employees, who have been on the front lines of service for the past year of the pandemic.
