[NEWS] Amazon’s Bezos challenges retail rivals to raise minimum wages – Loganspace AI

(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos on Thursday challenged rival retailers to elongate their minimal wages to $16 an hour.

“Today I sing our high retail rivals ( who you are!) to compare our worker advantages and our $15 minimal wage,” the billionaire entrepreneur mentioned in a letterhereto shareholders.

“Enact it! Higher but, plug to $16 and throw the gauntlet lend a hand at us.”

The get retailer extensive raised its minimal wage to $15 per hour for U.S. workers from November, giving in to critics of heart-broken pay and dealing stipulations at the firm.

Amazon’s wage hike came at a time when U.S. unemployment changed into at a shut to two-decade low as retailers and shippers were competing for millions of workers for the all-necessary vacation browsing season.

Bezos mentioned in his letter that the wage hike has benefited bigger than 250,000 Amazon workers and over 100,000 seasonal workers who labored at some stage in the closing vacation season at Amazon websites in the United States.

Amazon’s third birthday party sales in 2018 accounted for 58 p.c of entire sales, up from 56 p.c in 2017, Bezos mentioned.