Amazon Promises $500 Million in Holiday Bonuses for Front-Line Staff
28 November 2020 - 4:03AM
Dow Jones News
By Maria Armental
Amazon.com Inc. will pay front-line staff a special holiday
bonus as the e-commerce giant responds to a surge in online sales
during the coronavirus pandemic that is driving record results.
Full-time employees at Amazon from Dec. 1 through Dec. 31
qualify for a bonus of $300, while part-time employees will receive
$150, said Dave Clark, senior vice president of world-wide
operations, in a blog post. The special bonus will total more than
$500 million, he said.
The company offered a similar bonus in June following strong
demand from consumers stuck at home during coronavirus
lockdowns.
Early in the pandemic, Amazon faced criticism from employees
about its response to the virus. Employees at several facilities
staged walkouts in the spring demanding that Amazon shut down
facilities with positive cases.
The company has taken actions to address worker safety,
including requiring physical distancing and giving employees
personal protective gear. In all, Amazon said, it had spent more
than $7.5 billion in pandemic-related costs through Sept. 30.
The tech giant in October said more than 19,000 employees had
tested positive for the coronavirus, which it said was a lower
number than it expected based on the infection rate of the general
population, and said it continued to ramp up its in-house Covid-19
testing program with capacity reaching 50,000 tests a day across
650 sites by November.
Other retailers have provided extra pay to their front-line
workers. Walmart Inc. this year has given $1.1 billion in bonuses
to its associates. Target Corp. raised its starting wages for
hourly workers to $15, permanently extending a temporary increase
implemented during the pandemic, and gave its workers a bonus in
July.
Amazon, which raised its U.S. minimum pay to $15 an hour in
2018, reported a profit of $14.11 billion on $260.51 billion in net
sales for the first nine months of this year and projected $112
billion to $121 billion in sales this quarter. In 2019, Amazon
reported a $11.59 billion profit on $280.52 billion in sales.
Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 27, 2020 11:48 ET (16:48 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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