Walmart offers 100 per cent free college tuition and books for ALL of its 1.5m employees in bid to lure workers in a tight job market
Walmart on Tuesday announced it will pay the full cost of college tuition and books for its roughly 1.5 million full- and part-time employees, effective Aug. 16.
The largest private U.S. employer said it would be investing $1billion over the next five years into career development for its employees and drop the current $1-a-day fee workers are required to pay to take part in the company's higher education program.
The announcement comes as consumer demand is soaring as the U.S. economy reopens from the COVID-19 pandemic, deepening a national labor crunch, with employers, particularly in the retail and food service industry, adding incentives as they struggle to keep enough workers.
Walmart employees can choose from 10 different college partners, such as the University of Arizona, Southern New Hampshire University, Penn Foster and Purdue University among others through its Live Better For U program.
Walmart said Tuesday it was offering free college education through its Live Better For U program. Previously workers needed to pay a $1-a-day fee to participate. It comes as companies that employ large numbers of low-wage workers have been offering increasingly generous benefits in an effort to lure workers in a tight job market
So far 8,000 Walmart employees have received a degree through the program and 52,000 have taken part since its creation in 2018.
Walmart has been criticized for years because thousands of its workers are below the poverty line, and it has also been rapped for paying less than rivals including Amazon.com, Kroger and Target.
In February, Walmart said it would raise average pay for U.S. hourly workers to at least $15.25 an hour.
Lorraine Stomski, senior vice president of learning and leadership at Walmart, said Tuesday its educational offerings are tied to its growth areas, and that it will add programs in business administration, supply chain and cybersecurity
Then in March, it said it would further boost pay for its hourly workers on the U.S. east and west coasts, where the cost of living is higher and competition for labor among retailers more intense.
Lorraine Stomski, senior vice president of learning and leadership at Walmart, said Tuesday that its educational offerings are tied to its growth areas, and that it will add programs in business administration, supply chain and cybersecurity.
Increasingly, retail and restaurant companies which employ large numbers of minimum-wage workers are offering various incentives in a tight job market.
Among them include higher pay, which has jumped in recent months.
In retail, hourly wages among non-supervisor roles have increased 2.8percent to $18.57 since February aver remaining steady for years, according to the US Bureau of Labor statistics.
It was even more pronounced in the leisure and hospitality industry, which includes restaurants, where hourly wages increased 3.57percent since February to $18.23.
Walmart's announcement comes as retail employers have been offering incentives in recent months to lure and retain workers. Hourly wages among non-supervisor roles, for instance, have increased 2.8percent since February after remaining steady for years
The phenomenon is even more pronounced in the food service industry, where hourly wages have jumped 3.57percent since February
Companies such as the Lyons Group, which owns 21 restaurants in New England and Chicago have also recently added incentives meant to lure employees such as 401k accounts and health insurance, WBUR reported.
Still it has struggled to fill vacancies left by pandemic as restaurant workers leave the industry or stay on unemployment.
'Getting them back to work is going to be hard,' Lyons Group Culinary Director Nick Calias told the station. 'You're going to have to pay more, offer new opportunities for growth and maybe do different things that you weren't going to do.'
Other large companies such as Amazon have been following suit. In May it announced it was offering $100 bonuses for new hires to attract new workers, and said it was handing out raises to many existing employees.
Amazon didn't say if it is having trouble finding workers, but other companies have said they are as Americans start heading out again.
There's many reasons for the worker shortage: Some are fearful they'll get sick with coronavirus; others have child care issues and need to stay home to watch their children; and some businesses don't pay enough to go beyond the extra $300-a-week federal unemployment benefit.
On Thursday, the Labor Department said that jobless claims increased the previous week to 419,000, the most in two months, from 368,000 the previous week, which was the lowest level since the pandemic began.
The Labor Department said Thursday that jobless claims increased the previous week to 419,000, the most in two months, from 368,000 the previous week
The report said that 12.57 million people continue to claim some kind of jobless benefits, a decrease of 1.3 million from the week before, but still startlingly high when a record number of job openings are available.
Employers across the country are resorting to desperate measures to entice workers back into the job market, offering incentives such as hiring bonuses and childcare assistance.
While many industries have been affected, the driving industry is suffering a particularly severe shortage, with the lack of truck drivers spurring supply chain issues across the country.
Demand for truck drivers has only risen as e-commerce soared during the pandemic, and 16.1 percent of Indeed driving job postings are offering hiring incentives, according to Axios.
The share of job postings on Indeed with hiring incentives is at 4.3 percent, up from 1.8 percent in July 2020, with 14 percent of dental jobs, 12.2 percent of nursing jobs and 11.5 percent of veterinary jobs offering perks for new hires.
John Lanni, the co-owner of a restaurant group that has 39 venues across the country, on Wednesday night asked Joe Biden what the president could do to try and help him find more staff for his restaurants. Biden replied that wages needed to go up
At a town hall on Thursday, President Joe Biden addressed a question from a frustrated restaurateur who blamed federal unemployment supplements for discouraging people from seeking work.
Ohio restaurant owner John Lanni said he is already paying people $15 per hour but is struggling to find employees, asking: 'How do you and the Biden administration plan to incentivize those that haven't returned to work yet?'
Biden responded that federal jobless benefits weren't to blame for the labor shortage, and added that even if they were, the program is due to end soon.
Companies have posted the highest number of available jobs in the two decades that the data has been tracked. Hiring has picked up, though businesses say they often can't find enough employees at the wages they're willing to pay.
A 'Now Hiring' sign outside a Taco Bell restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky earlier this year
At the same time, analysts are becoming concerned about the potential economic consequences of a tick-up in confirmed viral infections as the highly contagious delta variant spreads, especially among the unvaccinated.
The seven-day rolling U.S. average for daily new cases accelerated over the past two weeks to more than 37,000 as of Tuesday, from fewer than 13,700, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Complaints by companies that they can't find enough workers have led 22 states to prematurely end a $300-a-week federal unemployment benefit, which comes on top of state jobless aid.
Twenty states have ended their participation in two other federal programs - one of which provides benefits to the self-employed and gig workers and and another that serves people who have been out of work for six months or longer.
Officials in two other states, Indiana and Maryland, had sought to end the supplemental aid programs but were blocked by court rulings. Nationally, the programs will all expire in early September.
The early cut-offs of expanded unemployment aid have contributed to a steady decline in the number of people receiving unemployment benefits.
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