Walmart announces pay raise for more than 565,000 employees

Walmart will be issuing a new pay hike and around 565,000 employees will benefit from it. This just shows that even in this time of economic struggle due to the pandemic, workers can still secure more pay.

John Furner, Walmart’s US president and chief executive officer, announced the news to its workforce through a memo that was obtained by CNN Business. It was stated that starting Sept. 25, staff associates working in the company’s store frontend, food and consumable, and general merchandise divisions will be given at least a $1 an hour pay increase on their wage. This is the retailer’s third hike in the last 12 months.

“It's our third wage investment in store associates over the past year,” Furner wrote in the memo. “The investment means that over the past year, we’ve raised pay for approximately 1.2 million hourly associates in our U.S. stores, increasing our U.S. average hourly wage to $16.40.”

Currently, Walmart is paying its associates the average rate of $15.25 and this places the company’s workforce ahead of the other major retailers in the U.S. including the CVS drug store that recently issued a pay hike for its minimum wages to $15 an hour. With companies raising their minimum salary rates, some government officials want to pass a bill that will make $15 the minimum wage level for all workers.

In any case, as per USA Today, Walmart declared the first increase in March and that was for the 425,000 store workers in its digital and stocking workgroups. Prior to this, in September 2020, the firm announced it will impose a raise for 165,000 workers’ hourly wages.

Walmart employs around 1.5 million people across the more than 5,000 stores in the United States and in Sam's Club locations. Its CEO, Doug McMillon, revealed earlier this year that they started increasing wages in 2015 and so far, they have given a total increase of over 50% in the last six years. Then again, despite being able to afford pay hikes, the company is also facing rising costs for everything from labor to shipping just like the other retailers in the country and worldwide.

"We're continuing to see a bit more cost inflation than normal, but our merchants are working with suppliers and monitoring price gaps to keep prices low while managing margins," Brett Biggs, Walmart’s chief financial officer, said last month during the quarterly earnings call.