Walmart Hikes Minimum Wage For Hourly US Workers To $14, Lift Average Hourly Wage to $17.50

Walmart Inc WMT prepared to hike average hourly wages for its 340,000 U.S. store workers at about 3,000 stores starting in February to tap employees in a tight domestic labor market.
Walmart's new wage hikes lift its average hourly pay to $17.50 from the current $17 an hour and will reflect in March 2 paychecks, Reuters reports.
The minimum wage will rise by up to $2 to $14-$19 per hour, depending on the location.
Walmart employs 1.6 million U.S. workers, most of whom work in rural and semi-urban areas.
The hikes, however, still lag rivals, including Amazon.Com Inc AMZN, Costco Wholesale Corp COST, and Target Corp TGT, which offered minimum pay of at least $15 an hour since 2021.
The average hourly earnings growth for U.S. workers slowed to 0.3% in December, compared with 0.4% in the prior month. Still, the labor market is resilient, with the unemployment rate falling to a 5-decade low of 3.5% in December.
Walmart struggled to find a new generation to replace multiple key managers leading its 4,700 U.S. stores for at least a decade.
The tight labor market and competition further added to its headwind, even for a job that often pays over $200,000 annually.
Last June, Walmart raised the average pay for pharmacy workers to more than $20 per hour and agreed to offer more frequent, and automatic pay raises to fight labor shortages.
Last April, Walmart raised the pay for truck drivers and distribution center workers.
Price Action: WMT shares traded lower by 0.27% at $142.64 premarket on the last check Wednesday.

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