Walmart to Offer Bonuses to Keep Warehouse Workers on the Job Through the Holidays

Walmart is offering special bonuses to many warehouse employees to work every hour they're scheduled and, in some cases giving temporary pay raises, as the country’s biggest retailer ramps up for the holiday shopping season with a tight labor market and stretched supply chains. According to The Wall Street Journal, the majority of Walmart’s 190 U.S. warehouses are offering the weekly bonus or pay raises, and the bonuses and raises vary by location and job type.

Some workers have been offered $1,000 over four weeks for not skipping any scheduled shifts during the second half of the summer. Earlier this summer, some workers were also offered temporary pay raises of $7 an hour through January 2022. Walmart, the country’s largest private employer with 1.6 million U.S. workers — most of whom are hourly workers in stores and warehouses — aims to acknowledge the efforts of employees with incentives and provide opportunity in a competitive job market.

Total Retail's Take: Walmart is continuing to dangle new and exciting perks to recruit and retain employees as it faces a global supply chain snarled by the pandemic, while at the same time demand for many products and services grows. Indeed, Walmart may face an influx of e-commerce orders because of the rise of the delta coronavirus variant and changed consumer habits. Walmart recently said it's dropping a $1 a day fee and will pay 100 percent of college tuition and textbooks.

Furthermore, many retailers have spoken of their struggles to fill jobs amid a reopening economy. They’ve attributed the labor shortage to a wide range of factors, including concerns about COVID-19, a lack of child care, and supplemental unemployment payments. CVS Health, for example, said that it would boost pay for workers and drop education requirements, such as having a high school diploma or GED requirement to qualify for most entry-level roles. It said it would raise its minimum wage from $11 to $15 an hour as of July 2022.

Target also rolled out debt-free college education for full- or part-time employees, which will begin in the fall. The company will also help fund graduate degrees. Target also recently announced a $200 bonus for all of its approximately 340,000 hourly workers, which will be paid out this month. The company said investments total $75 million. It will be interesting to see if these incentives work.