So the big news yesterday is that Walmart will be raising wages for over 500,000 employees. They will be hiked up to $9.00 an hour, which doesn’t make a difference in California, where that’s the minimum wage, but other states are as low as $7.25 so those employees will be seeing quite a jump.
Only Walmart knows if they made the change to reduce turnover and attract better workers or if it was just from all the pressure they have been receiving of late but regardless it’s a step in the right direction. It will cost them a BILLION dollars this year. That’s a pretty penny and it remains to be seen how they will recoup those dollars (higher prices, anyone?)
There are a lot of companies out there starting at exactly minimum wage (I work for one…) so it will be interesting to see if this makes other companies raise their starting wages as well. With the current job market there will be even more competition for workers now. It will be tough to hear a prospective applicant say “I’m not taking your job, because I can make more at Walmart.”