A worker assembles a box for delivery to the Amazon Performance Center in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, on April 30, 2019. Amazon has increased its initial average salary in the United States to over $ 18 per hour and plans to hire another 125,000 warehouses and transportation workers. (Clodagh Kilcoyne, Reuters)
SEATTLE: Amazon has raised its initial average wage in the United States to more than $ 18 an hour and plans to hire 125,000 warehouse and transportation workers, an executive told Reuters.
The world’s largest online retailer has raised its salary by an average of about $ 17 since May. In some places, the company gives bonuses to sign $ 3,000, said Dave Bozeman, vice president of Amazon Delivery Services, or three times what the company offered four months ago.
The biggest paycheck, which Reuters first reported, shows how big employers are desperate to lure workers into an ever-narrowing U.S. job market. Fewer Americans are seeking unemployment claims in the same way that openings have hit a record in the reopening economy.
Bozeman attributed Amazon’s latest compensation increase to fierce competition. Amazon did not give exact figures, but a $ 1 hike for a $ 17 hourly wage would mean a 6% hike.
Amazon, now the second largest U.S. private entrepreneur, set a minimum wage of $ 15 per hour in 2018. Walmart recently announced an average hourly wage of $ 16.40, while Walgreens said it would increase its minimum at $ 15 in October.
“It’s a tight job market, and we’ve seen some of the things the whole industry is seeing,” said Bozeman, who spoke in an interview at a delivery station in Tukwila, Washington.
He said Amazon would maintain its base salary of $ 15 per hour. Benefits such as funding college tuition for workers and starting salary up to $ 22.50 in some areas distinguished the online retailer from peers, he said.
Growth of meetings
Amazon news, after the logistics hiring announced it in May and the company recruitment it announced this month, follows a stretch of greater control over its work practices. A failed effort by some Alabama staff members this year to organize showed Amazon’s demanding warehouse work and aggressive anti-union stance. After that battle, then-CEO Jeff Bezos said the company needed better vision for employees.
Andy Jassy, who succeeded Bezos, said in a CNBC interview aired Tuesday that the United States should raise the federal minimum wage.
Amazon is hiring workers to help run 100 logistics facilities that will be launched this month in the United States, in addition to the more than 250 opened earlier this year. Some workers will help in Amazon’s long-term effort to launch a one-day delivery for members of the Prime loyalty club.
“The 125,000 (warehouse workers) are really helping us keep up with our growth,” said Bozeman, who added that only a minority of jobs had to deal with wear and tear. Amazon said it would fill the roles, which are full-time and part-time, as quickly as possible, but did not offer a timeline.
The company’s external delivery service partners also plan to hire another 50,000 workers by the end of the year, Amazon said.
Nicole Bilich, human resources manager, said the competitive pay has been awarded to applicants from her warehouse in Stockton, California, which Amazon plans to launch in October. But hiring 2,200 people in three or four months is not easy.
“The biggest challenge we have is really just the number of people we need,” he said.