news/AMZN/2023.01.24/Walmart to raise minimum wage for U.S. hourly workers to $14.txt

Jan 24 (Reuters) - Walmart Inc on Tuesday said
it will raise average hourly wages for its U.S. store workers
starting next month, as it seeks to attract and retain employees
in a tight domestic labor market.Walmart's new wage hikes lift its average hourly wage
pay to $17.50 from the current $17 an hour and will reflect in
March 2 paychecks, the company said. The minimum wage will rise
by as much as $2 for staff at its U.S. stores to a range of
$14-$19 per hour, depending on location, a spokesperson said in
an email, adding that about 340,000 workers at about 3,000
stores will be eligible.Walmart employs 1.6 million U.S. workers, a majority of whom
work in rural and semi-urban areas.The hikes, however, still lag rivals including Amazon
, Costco and Target, which have been
offering minimum pay of atleast $15 an hour since 2021.Walmart's move comes as U.S. wage growth moderates. Data
from earlier this month showed 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 rate of
unemployment falling to a 5-decade low of 3.5% in December and
number of job openings far outpacing the number of unemployed.This has raised prospects that the U.S. Federal Reserve
could further raise interest rates, putting further strain on
minimum wage workers and household budgets.The wage increases are a combination of regular annual
increases and targeted investments in starting rates, the
company said in a statement on Tuesday.Walmart's new round of hikes come six months after it raised
the average pay for pharmacy workers to more than $20 per hour
and said it would offer more frequent and automatic pay raises
as part of a new "progressive wage model" to fight labor
shortages. It has previously also raised pay for truck drivers
and distribution center workers.
(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in New York and Uday Sampath in
Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath and David Gregorio)