Corporate America hikes wages or bonuses to hire staff amid Covid rebound   

Amid staff shortages, employers are pushing up hourly wages, dangling hiring bonuses and poaching workers from rivals with offers of better hours and higher pay

Wages for the leisure and hospitality industry have surged at an annualised pace of 6.6% over the past two years. File picture

For the first time in decades, the American worker is finally in command when it comes time to talk money. There are tell-tale signs everywhere –like the way some employers – such as Kroger, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Under Armour – are frantically pushing up hourly wages to try to retain employees. 

Others – like Starbucks and Drury Hotels – are dangling hiring bonuses to entry-level applicants. Or the way CVS Health is no longer requiring job seekers to have high-school diplomas and Dan Sacco, the owner of Your Pie restaurants in Iowa, is instructing his general managers to poach workers from rivals with offers of better hours and higher pay. “Everything is fair game now,” Mr Sacco said.

Fattest pay hikes

It is unclear how long all of this will last in the wild and disjointed economic recovery that’s followed last year’s pandemic collapse. But one thing is certain – workers are scoring the fattest pay hikes since the early 1980s. Wages for the leisure and hospitality industry have surged at an annualised pace of 6.6% over the past two years. 

“If you’re not able to get staff to cover, it leaves you really crunched and that’s what we’re seeing at the moment,” said Neil Saunders, a managing director at market research firm GlobalData. “Wages have gone up and have been going up.” 

• Bloomberg