Amazon Raises Hourly Pay by $1 Ahead of Holiday Shopping Season

Amazon is raising pay(Opens in a new window) for hourly employees ahead of the holiday shopping season.

Average starting pay for US front-line workers in customer fulfillment and transportation is increasing from $18 per hour to more than $19 per hour, with employees earning between $16 and $26 per hour, depending on position and location, Amazon says. (Amazon announced a $15-per-hour minimum hourly wage in 2018.)

Amazon says this will be a $1 billion investment and a $10 billion investment in overall team benefits for 2022, both of which are largely a drop in the bucket for a company currently worth(Opens in a new window) $1.301 trillion.

Other benefits Amazon rolled out lately include Anytime Pay, which lets staffers retrieve up to 70% of their eligible earned salary any time (without fees), no matter the reason.

The announcement comes just days after a software error reportedly overstated bonus payments as part of corporate employee promotion offers. In an internal email, Amazon HQ requested that managers break the bad news to employees promoted during the last quarter—some 40% of whom are affected by the compensation reduction.

Among its less senior, hourly employees, Amazon has taken heat in recent months for union-busting tactics. Last year, when Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) called out Amazon for making workers “urinate in water bottles,” the company was forced to issue a rare apology after it disputed Pocan’s claim (about which there is well-documented evidence).

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