Walmart Offers Warehouse Workers Bonuses Ahead Of Holiday Shopping Season

Walmart Inc WMT is offering its warehouse workers either weekly bonuses or temporary pay raises in order to maintain a stable workforce ahead of the year-end holiday shopping season.

What Happened: The Wall Street Journal, citing an unnamed “person familiar with the situation,” said some workers were offered $1,000 over four weeks for not skipping their scheduled shifts during the second half of the summer while others were provided with temporary pay raises of several dollars an hour that will last through January 2022.

Walmart's warehouse workers earn higher wages than store associates: the average hourly wage of $20.37 for the warehouse staff, excluding drivers, versus an average wage of $14.61 for Walmart store associates, according to CNBC.

Walmart is the nation’s largest private employer with a 1.6 million-person workforce, and the company operates 190 warehouses across the U.S. The company’s new incentives are being made during a tight labor market and a business environment where pandemic-induced disruptions and rising inflation have impacted supply chains.

Retailers including Walmart are already preparing their holiday season inventory and are eager not to have any unexpected snafus during the busiest shopping period of the year.

Related Link: 25,000 Disneyland Employees In Class Action Lawsuit Alleging Underpaid Wages

What Else Happened: Walmart is the latest major consumer-facing employer to offer new incentives to attract and retain workers.

Earlier this week, CVS Health Corp CVS said it was raising its minimum wage from $11 to $15 an hour and dropping educational requirements for employment, while Starbucks Corporation SBUX said it was increasing the starting rate for baristas in all markets to at least $12 per hour and up to or above $15 in selected areas while hiking hourly employees’ wages by 5% in October; tenured Starbucks employees are in line for a 6% wage increase.

In May, McDonald’s Corp MCD said the employees of the company-owned eateries were receiving 10% pay raises. Also in May, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. CMG announced that its restaurant workers were receiving pay increases to an average of $15 per hour.

Photo: Mike Mozart / Flickr Creative Commons.