Amazon To Start Pay Increases At New Jersey Warehouse Sites

NEW JERSEY — The starting pay for Amazon workers in the United States is now more than $18 an hour and the company plans to hire 125,000 more employees, including some who could work at the warehouses in the Garden State.

Amazon has several fulfillment centers in New Jersey including locations in Robbinsville, Edison, Cranbury, Carteret and Burlington.

A company executive told Reuters that while the company’s minimum wage will remain at $15, the average Amazon starting wage for employees will increase by about 6 percent. The average hourly pay for a new Amazon employee had already increased to around $17 an hour in May, Reuters reported.

Dave Bozeman, vice president of Amazon Delivery Services, also told Reuters the company is now offering $3,000 signing bonuses. That’s triple what Amazon offered four months ago, according to the report.

The new incentives come amid a continued hiring crisis across the country. Business owners in several industries have limited their hours and found new ways to entice prospective workers over the past few months.

“It’s a tight labor market, and we’ve seen some of that as the entire industry is seeing,” Bozeman told Reuters.

Nichole Bilich, the human resources manager for an Amazon warehouse set to open next month in California, told Reuters the more competitive pay has enticed additional applicants, but said in a tight labor market, it’s still going to be difficult to fill 2,000 jobs in three to four months.

“The biggest challenge we have is really just the numbers of people we need,” Bilich said.

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The exact locations of where the 125,000 new Amazon hires will work, and the company’s new employee distribution plan, weren’t immediately available Tuesday.