Apple is Increasing Wages for its Corporate and Retail Employees

It does so in order to 'Support and Retain the greatest team members.'

Apple will begin paying its corporate and retail staff more generously in the hopes that they will stay with the company rather than leave in search of better opportunities. According to CNBC and The Financial Times, the corporation will also increase the beginning wage for new employees from $20 to $22 per hour. Furthermore, rather than in the autumn, it will begin providing yearly wage raises in July. The internet behemoth didn't go into specifics about how it plans to alter its compensation structure, but it did tell the publications: "Supporting and maintaining the greatest team members in the world allows us to provide our consumers with the best, most innovative products and services. We're raising our overall pay budget this year as part of our annual performance assessment process." FA According to a recent Bloomberg article, Apple is paying its salespeople, Genius Bar support employees, and senior hourly workers up to 10% more, however it's unclear if this is the same pay increase. In their drive for greater compensation and benefits, retail staff at several Apple Store locations began planning to organize unions earlier this year. Inflation in the United States hit 8.5 percent in March, causing consumers to seek higher remuneration as the cost of products in the country continues to rise. At the same time, the pandemic's labor shortages have boosted workers' confidence in confronting their bosses and strengthened efforts to unionize across industries. While the corporation is increasing employee pay, retail workers have accused the company of union busting. Deirdre O'Brien, the company's VP of people and retail, was even shown on a leaked video attempting to prevent staff from joining a union. Apple isn't the only tech company trying to keep its employees and keep them from unionizing by raising their pay. Amazon more than quadrupled its base pay cap for corporate and tech staff, Google redesigned its yearly review process to result in higher salaries, and Microsoft pledged pay raises to its employees. There's a lot of rivalry for workers now that the jobless rate is reaching historic lows. To keep top employees, Apple has given out large bonuses. And now it's raising wages for hourly employees. Apple stated in a statement that "supporting and maintaining the greatest team members in the globe enables us to provide the best, most creative products and services for our customers." "We're boosting our overall pay budget this year as part of our annual performance assessment process." According to the Wall Street Journal, the starting wage for hourly workers in the United States is increasing from $20 to $22. According to CNBC, this is a 45 % rise from 2018. Additionally, employees' starting salaries are apparently being increased. Apple's stated reasons for raising hourly pay make no mention of its retail employees forming unions, but it must be a factor. Employees who want to form unions want better compensation, and if Apple can deliver that, unionization attempts will be weakened. And the company is trying hard to undermine those initiatives. Inflation is eating into workers' salaries, so the pay raises will help mitigate that.