Amazon is delivering a new perk to its warehouse workers—one that’s been a long time coming.
The e-commerce giant on Wednesday announced that, in addition to increasing front-line workers’ pay by at least $1.50 an hour, the company will also now offer its Prime membership as a perk starting next year.
Launched in 2005 for $79 a year, Amazon Prime has steadily increased its initial offering of free two-day shipping to include streaming and digital benefits, grocery savings, medical care and prescription benefits, and more. Now boasting a user base of over 180 million U.S. Shoppers as of March, Amazon Prime’s price has also ballooned to $14.99 per month, or $139 per year.
“Our front-line team members across our operations are a big part in bringing the magic of Prime to customers, and starting early next year, Prime will become part of their benefits package,” Amazon vice president of worldwide operations Udit Madan wrote in a blog post announcing the new benefits.
The free Prime membership, however, is exclusive to front-line workers, the company told Coins2Day. Corporate employees will still need to shell out the full amount to buy their own subscriptions. However, all employees, both logistics and corporate, will continue to receive 10% off Amazon merchandise, up to a maximum discount of $100 per year.
Even with the new boost to an average base wage of more than $22 an hour, Amazon warehouse workers’ pay is still far lower than that of their white-collar colleagues. According to ZipRecruiter, the average Amazon corporate employee brings home $133,000 per year, or about $64 an hour.
As the No. 2 company on the Coins2Day 500, Amazon employs more than 1.5 million people and said the new wage increase represents a total investment of more than $2.2 billion in its workforce. When including elected benefits, the new raises bring the average total compensation to $29 an hour, or around $55,000 for a 40-hour workweek.
The wage hike and work perks come as Amazon prepares for the busy holiday season and an upcoming Prime Day-like sale on Oct. 8-9. The fall sale is the third savings bonanza of its kind this year, with previous events occurring in spring and summer. During July’s Prime Day event, customers spent a record $14.2 billion, an 11% increase from last year, according to sales tracking data from Adobe Analytics.
Amazon also made waves this week after CEO Andy Jassy announced plans to order employees back to the office five days per week. Previously, office workers were required to tap into their buildings at least three days per week, depending on their team requirements. The new full-time requirement, however, will make exceptions for extenuating circumstances or for employees whose managers had already approved a fully remote position.
“When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” Jassy wrote in a memo to staff, saying he wants to operate like “the world’s largest startup.”
Jassy is also planning to reduce layers of management, which have become bloated in recent years due to dramatic hiring increases, according to employees who spoke with Coins2Day’s Jason Del Rey.
The return-to-office plan was not met well by some employees, who slammed the new rules in the company’s internal Slack channel, according to Business Insider.
Others took to LinkedIn in pursuit of new gigs.
“If you have remote opportunities available, please message me,” an Amazon Web Services engineer wrote. “Nothing is off the table. I’d rather go back to school than work in an office again.”
