Amazon to raise average hourly pay by $1 to $19 in October

By HALELUYA HADERO
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon says it’s raising its average starting pay for frontline workers from $18 to $19 a hour. That could help it attract more employees in a tight labor market as the holiday season approaches. The company said that beginning in October, warehouse and transportation workers would earn between $16 and $26 an hour, depending on their position and location in the U.S. The minimum wage at the Seattle-based e-commerce company, which employed roughly 1.5 million workers as of the end of June, will remain $15 an hour. Amazon had raised its average hourly pay to $18 an hour last year. It says the new raise would cost it $1 billion in the next year.