Target to Raise Minimum Wage to $10 an Hour
April 18 2016 - 6:18PM
Dow Jones News
By Paul Ziobro
Target Corp. is raising the minimum wage for employees to $10 an
hour, a personal familiar with the matter said, as retailers face
growing competition for lower wage workers.
The new hourly rate will match the minimum implemented earlier
this year by rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for most U.S. workers.
Target boosted starting pay to $9 an hour in 2015, after a similar
increase by Wal-Mart.
Target had 341,000 full time, part time and seasonal workers as
of Jan. 30. News of the company's latest pay increase was earlier
reported by Reuters.
Target has resisted publicly commenting on introductory wages
for its employees. Instead, company executives have said that
Target pays competitively and adjusts wages based on the local
market. For instance, in high-cost areas like New York and Los
Angeles, starting hourly wages are already above $9.
"Our team is a huge part of what makes Target, Target," the
retailer said in a statement. "We pay market competitive rates and
regularly benchmark the marketplace to ensure that our compensation
and benefits packages will help us to both recruit and retain great
talent."
Retail is the largest private sector employer in the U.S., and
competition for hourly workers has ratcheted up in recent months
amid an improving labor market. Labor activists are also pushing
for retailers to raise wages for hourly workers. Several
municipalities and states have passed $15 minimum wage floors.
Wal-Mart started the wage war early in 2015, when it announced
plans to raise wages to $9 an hour and follow it up with $10 an
hour in February 2016. Wal-Mart also gave hourly workers a pay bump
of at least 2% this February, a wage increase that affected nearly
1.2 million people.
The higher introductory pay rates have come with some challenges
at retailers, with some longer tenured employees bristling at the
fact that new hires now make an hourly rate that took them years to
attain.
Write to Paul Ziobro at Paul.Ziobro@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 18, 2016 18:03 ET (22:03 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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