Amazon is increasing wages for its U.S. front-line employees—a nearly $1 billion investment over the next year—in addition to investing in new skills training and wage access programs.
Average hourly pay for front-line employees in customer fulfillment and transportation increased from $18 per hour to more than $19 per hour, with employees earning between $16 and $26 per hour depending on their position and location in the U.S., the company said.
“Front-line employees across customer fulfillment and transportation will now earn, on average, more than $19 per hour in the U.S., and they also have access to a growing range of comprehensive benefits to support themselves and their families,” said John Felton, Amazon’s senior vice president of Worldwide Operations. “Continuing to invest in pay, providing easy access to earned wages at any time during the month, and offering great benefits and career advancement opportunities are all part of our long-term efforts to be the best employer in the world.”
Building on the commitment to create career advancement opportunities for 300,000 employees through 2025, Amazon has formally added an additional development program, Amazon Intelligence Initiative.
This career advancement program is designed to place employees in engineering roles within Amazon Web Services (AWS), working to operate AWS’s Dedicated Cloud regions. Employees participate in a 12-14-month development program to enhance their technical skills. These engineers then complete multiple on-the-job rotations with hands-on experience alongside top AWS engineers. The Amazon Intelligence Initiative provides participants with full-time employment during this training, with great pay and benefits. Once their time in the program is completed, employees are placed into the most appropriate roles.
These benefit additions come as Career Choice, Amazon’s education benefit that empowers employees to learn new skills for career success, celebrates its 10-year anniversary and includes more than 90,000 total employee participants. Since March, Career Choice has added more than 100 new education partners, bringing the current total to over 260, including several Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
In January 2022, Career Choice expanded to include pre-funded college tuition, new industry certifications, courses to improve English-language proficiency, and high school completion programs. Since launching these enhancements, more than 110 employees have graduated with their GEDs.
To prioritize flexibility and make access to pay as easy, instant, and convenient as possible for employees, Amazon expanded its wage access program, Anytime Pay, to all employees across its U.S. operations, corporate, and technology networks. Anytime Pay provides Amazon employees access to up to 70% of their eligible earned pay, whenever they choose and without fees, with the goal of putting employees in control of their pay schedule. Previously, most Amazon employees received their regular pay once or twice monthly. Anytime Pay now offers employees access to their earned pay as often as they like.
