Walgreens Raising Starting Pay To $15 Per Hour

DEERFIELD, IL — With a workforce that grew by more than 25,000 employees since the beginning of the pandemic, Walgreens will soon be paying its workers more money. The Deerfield-based company announced Tuesday it will increase the starting hourly wage for all team members to $15 an hour, taking effect in phases beginning in October of this year and are expected to be fully implemented by Nov. 1, 2022.

“I am extremely proud and grateful of the work our team members are doing across our 9,000 Walgreens locations serving our customers, patients and communities each and every day,” said Roz Brewer, CEO, Walgreens Boots Alliance, in a news release. “Investing in and rewarding our team members is not only the right thing to do, it’s highly important to retaining and attracting a talented workforce, and to continuing to serve our critical role in community health care.”

$15 Minimum Wage Starts In Chicago July 1

Illinois' minimum wage rage jumped to $11 in January and will reach the $15 minimum wage rage with a $1 increase each January until 2025 after Gov. JB Pritzker signed the bill into law in 2019.

A University of Illinois study last year showed that more than 1.4 million hourly workers across the state make less than $15 an hour.

Walgreens said since the start of the pandemic, it has made additional investments in support of its team members, including bonus payments and a significant hiring initiative, through which the company added 25,000 full-time and part-time pharmacy team members. Walgreens has also accelerated implementation of remote and digitalized pharmacy resources to enable pharmacists to spend more time with patients, and to allow all store team members to deliver the best service and care to customers and patients, according to the news release.

Total investment to support the starting wage increase is anticipated to be approximately $450 million over the next three years, with one-third of the amount invested in Fiscal Year 2022. The company anticipates that it will partially absorb the investment through the normal course of business.

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