E-commerce giant Amazon recently announced a $2.2 billion initiative that will increase hourly wages for its order fulfillment and transportation workers to $22 per hour and to more than $29 per hour for those with benefits packages, a move which a company spokesperson called a “significant new investment in pay and benefits.”   

“This is part of an annual process where we review our wages and benefits to ensure that they stay competitive – and in many cases industry-leading – and I’m proud to say that this year is our biggest ever investment in our team. It’s one of the many ways that we say thank you for all the work that they do to support our customers and communities, and it was exciting to be able to share the news with hundreds of them in person,” said Udit Madan, Vice President, Amazon Worldwide Operations.

Amazon more than doubled the federal minimum wage and increased its workers’ starting wages to $15 per hour in 2018 and have followed up by increasing it each year since then.

For full-time employees working a 40-hour week, this is an average salary increase of $3,000 per year. Employees will also be eligible to receive free Prime memberships.

Madan elaborated on how the move would supplement employee benefits.

“For many years, we’ve worked hard to offer one of the best benefits packages in our industry, which includes things like health care from the first day on the job, dental coverage, a 401(k) program with a company match, flexible working hours and even pre-paid college tuition. Throughout each year, we listen to our teams’ feedback and make adjustments to our benefits – from little (but important) things like offering scheduling flexibility when life happens with Unpaid Personal Time (UPT) that employees accrue, to bigger network-wide things like adding new features to our pre-paid education program, which we call Career Choice,” Madan said.

With more than 200,000 participants around the globe, Career Choice teams up with educators in 600 schools across 14 nations to help employees develop new skills. In its partnership, Amazon focuses on fields like healthcare, tech, mechanical and industrial systems, administration and business services, and transportation. Students benefit from prepaid tuition and reimbursement for books and fees that fall within a preset annual limit.

Through its Upskilling 2025 initiative, Amazon said it plans to invest $1.2 billion to boost the education and skills of 300,000 employees with a focus on in-demand roles in both technical and non-technical fields, according to About Amazon. Career Choice is one of several programs that help employees progress both at Amazon and in the broader job market, while the others include Amazon Technical Apprenticeship as well as Amazon Web Services (AWS) Training and Certification.

"This investment builds on years of experience supporting employees in growing their careers, including some unique initiatives like building more than 145 on-site classrooms for our employees in Amazon fulfillment centers across more than 35 states," according to former CEO of Worldwide Consumer at Amazon Dave Clark. "Today, over 80,000 Amazon employees around the world have already participated in Career Choice, and we’ve seen first-hand how it can transform their lives."

Madan traveled to the company’s facility in Salt Lake City, Utah on Sept. 18 to deliver the news to employees in person, concurrent with the company’s public statement.

“Recently, we heard from employees that they love taking language classes through Career Choice, but that they didn’t like waiting for a few months before they were eligible (those classes were only offered after 90 days). So today we changed that – we’ll now let our team enroll in language classes from day one. It may seem like a small change, but we’re making hundreds of changes like that throughout each year – at the individual site level and across our network – based on the feedback we hear from our team. And we’re proud to do it.”

Amazon is one of the United States’ largest private employers, boasting a front-line workforce of 800,000 people.