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Walmart said Thursday it would pay about $ 388 million – $ 300 to full-time employees and $ 150 to part-time employees – in one-off bonuses on Dec. 24. The retail giant has around 1.5 million employees, or more than 60%. dont work full time.
This will be Walmart’s fourth round of bonuses this year. The company said it also pays its employees quarterly performance bonuses throughout the year, bringing the total amount Walmart paid in bonuses this year to more than $ 2.8 billion.
Walmart was seen as an “essential” business and stores have remained open throughout the pandemic. Walmart (WMT) has increased its sales and profits, and its share price has risen more than 25% this year.
However, unions, worker advocacy groups and some members of Congress say workers at Walmart should receive permanent hourly pay increases or an additional risk bonus for doing their jobs in the pandemic, not just cash bonuses. .
“While a one-time bonus recognizes the extreme sacrifices of frontline associates during the pandemic, it doesn’t go far enough,” said Molly Kinder, a member of the Brookings Institution think tank, who wrote a report last month on compensation of workers at major retailers during the pandemic.
Walmart’s starting wage, $ 11 an hour, is lower than the $ 15 minimum wage of many competitors, and Kinder noted that Walmart’s latest bonus to workers is less than 25% of the increase in profits than it does. The company gained in the last quarter compared to a year ago.
With the $ 388 million in additional bonuses announced Thursday, Kinder said Walmart employees would earn an average of $ 0.71 an hour in extra pay in the event of a pandemic until the end of the year, “well less than the extra pay that the frontline associates will have earned at many of Walmart’s closest competitors, ”Kinder said.
Delia Garcia, a Walmart spokesperson, did not respond directly to Kinder’s calculations, but said that “Walmart associates continue to provide a vital service in communities across the country.”
Some channels, such as Target (TGT), Best buy (BBY), Home Depot (High Definition) and Starbucks (SBUX) have permanently increased the hourly wages of their workers in recent months. (Target was part of a plan announced in 2017 to increase its minimum wage to $ 15 by the end of 2020.) Amazon (AMZN), Kroger (KR), Albertsons and others gave their workers risk compensation during the first months of the pandemic, but have since ended it. Amazon said last week it would pay vacation bonuses to workers.
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