Amazon is growing pay for warehouse and supply employees

A worker sorts packages at the outbound dock of the Amazon fulfillment center in Eastvale, California on Tuesday, August 31, 2021.

Watchara Phomicinda | MediaNews Group | The Riverside Press-Enterprise via Getty Images

Amazon is increasing hourly wages for its warehouse and delivery workers, the company announced on Wednesday.

Beginning in October, Amazon’s average starting salary for frontline workers in the U.S. will increase from $18 an hour to more than $19 an hour, the company said.

Warehouse and delivery workers make between $16 and $26 an hour, depending on the position, Amazon added. Amazon’s minimum wage for US employees remains $15 an hour.

Amazon is spending about $1 billion on next year’s wage increases to attract and retain employees in a historically tight job market. It’s also preparing for the entry into the so-called “high season,” the particularly busy shopping season associated with the bank holidays.

Tensions between Amazon and its frontline workers have increased, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. Workers have demanded wage increases, more paid time off and adjustments in productivity expectations.

Workers at several Amazon operations have taken steps to organize, and earlier this year workers at Amazon’s warehouse in Staten Island, New York, successfully voted to form the company’s first US union. Amazon faces another union election next month at a site near Albany, New York.

The company announced earlier this month that it plans to increase salaries and benefits for drivers employed by members of its contracted delivery network, which handles a growing proportion of its last-mile deliveries to customers’ doorsteps.

In addition to the pay rise, Amazon says it is also expanding a payday advance program for its employees, allowing them to access up to 70% of their eligible earned salary at any time and without fees, not just on a schedule such as a weekday. B. every two weeks.

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