Amazon is going to start paying a $15 minimum wage. That’s good news in the Triangle.
The news that e-commerce giant Amazon would be raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour was a welcome surprise for the town of Garner.
The town is expected to add 1,500 new jobs when Amazon opens up a new distribution center in the fall of 2019. Originally most of those jobs were expected to pay around $12.50 an hour, placing the salaries at less than $30,000 a year, The News & Observer previously reported.
Now, with Amazon’s decision to raise wages, the vast majority of jobs at the planned Amazon distribution center on Jones Sausage Road will be above that $30,000 a year mark.
“We didn’t know they were going to raise the minimum wage when we did the project, but certainly this is great news,” said Joe Stallings, economic development director for the town of Garner. “There had been some comments about how this was a great project but the wages were low. Certainly this is going to raise the average for the project.”
Amazon hopes to have its Garner distribution center operational sometime next year. When completed the center will be a four-story, 2.6-million-square-foot building about 12 miles southeast of downtown Raleigh. The project will be going in at 4851 Jones Sausage Road, the site of a former ConAgra plant that exploded in 2009.
The new $15 minimum wage — which will go into effect on Nov. 1 — will benefit more than 250,000 Amazon employees, as well as over 100,000 seasonal employees who will be hired for the holiday season, Amazon said in a release.
Amazon will also begin advocating for the federal minimum wage to be lifted as well, a notable turn for a company that has been criticized in the past — including recently by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — for paying low wages to its warehouse workers.
“We will be working to gain Congressional support for an increase in the federal minimum wage. The current rate of $7.25 was set nearly a decade ago,” said Jay Carney, senior vice president of Amazon Global Corporate Affairs, in a statement. “We intend to advocate for a minimum wage increase that will have a profound impact on the lives of tens of millions of people and families across this country.”
Stallings said that he hopes that the increase in starting wages at the future Amazon jobs will increase upward mobility in the area.
If you look at current job postings for the Amazon fulfillment center in Durham “they start out at $10.50 an hour, so if you go from $10.50 to $15 that is a substantial increase,” Stallings said. “Anytime someone can make more money in that type of position it is good for them and can better afford folks to pay rent or their mortgage in town or Johnston County or wherever they come from.”
Michael Walden, an economist at N.C. State University, said Amazon’s increase in wages could impact entry jobs across the region, as businesses have to compete for workers. Locally, the state of North Carolina also raised its minimum wage to $15 for many of its lowest-earning workers, he added.
“Combined with the earlier in the year announcement of a much higher minimum wage for state workers, there will be renewed upward pressure on local wage rates, particularly at the entry level,” Walden said. “The impact could affect many industries, including fast food. So short run, this is positive for workers and challenging for businesses, especially in a tight labor market.”
According to a presentation given by Wake County Economic Development and obtained by The News & Observer, all employees at the Garner distribution center will be eligible for full benefits on their first day of employment, which will include full healthcare coverage, dental, vision, life insurance, 401K and paid vacation and sick leave. Employees will also be eligible for stock options and a quarterly bonus.
After one year of employment, the presentation notes, employees can also enroll in Amazon’s Career Choice Program, which consists of one to two classrooms within the distribution center. Employees in the program can use these classrooms to get training in skills like “welding, nursing, software development, etc.”
To help land the distribution center, the town of Garner promised to contribute $600,000 and the North Carolina Department of Transportation $4.5 million to make significant improvements to Jones Sausage Road to accommodate the added traffic, the town said at the announcement.
Additionally Wake County approved up to a $300,000 reimbursement for water and sewer infrastructure, said Chris Dillon, assistant county manager for Wake County.
Amazon is also currently planning to build a distribution center near the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. That facility, scheduled to be completed in late 2019, will also employ 1,500 people, the Charlotte Observer reported. The city of Charlotte has agreed to give Amazon $13.7 million in incentives, according to The Observer.
This story was originally published October 2, 2018 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Amazon is going to start paying a $15 minimum wage. That’s good news in the Triangle.."