The nation’s largest discount retailer continues to enhance its image as an employer, announcing a round of employee bonuses to be paid on March 8.
Walmart Inc. will be awarding one-time bonuses worth $200 to $1,000 to about 890,000 of its 1 million hourly employees. Second bonuses also may be in today’s paychecks, depending on each store’s fourth-quarter performance for sales and customer service.
The move is a sign that retail competition doesn’t just take place over merchandise – it’s also an acute issue in the ongoing low-unemployment labor market as employers struggle to fill hourly positions in many markets.
The bonus payouts total $560 million, including $11.9 million for workers in the chain’s 119 Michigan-based stores. Of that, $4 million represents store performance bonuses after sales topped $4.2 billion in Michigan in 2017.
Employees on payroll as of January 31 and who didn’t benefit from the retailer’s new $11 per hour starting pay are eligible for the one-time payouts worth a U.S. total of $400 million. The highest bonus goes to workers who have been there for at least 20 years.
About $160 million of the national bonus money was pegged to fourth-quarter store performance.
The bonus payouts come weeks after Walmart announced that, in addition to setting aside cash for the one-time payout, it would raise its national base pay to $11 per hour and improve the parental leave policy.
Click here to read more.
SOURCE: Mlive.com, Paula Gardner
BCNN1 WP 