Target adopting minimum wages as high as $24 an hour

U.S. retailer Target has announced it will adopt a minimum wage system that will pay company employees up to $24 an hour. 

In a statement on Monday, the Minneapolis-based retailer said that the new minimum wage will range from $15 to $24, depending on the job and local market.

The system is also part of Target’s plan to spend an additional $300 million on its labor force, which includes expanded access to health care coverage and an enhanced benefits package for employees. 

“Our team is at the heart of our strategy and success, and their energy and resilience keep us at the forefront of meeting the changing needs of our guests year after year. We continuously listen to our team members to understand what’s most important to them, then use the feedback to make investments that meet their needs across different career and life stages,” Target’s chief human resources officer, Melissa Kremer, said in a statement. 

“We want all team members to be better off for working at Target, and years of investments in our culture of care, meaningful pay, expanded health care benefits and opportunities for growth have been essential to helping our team members build rewarding careers,” she added.

The latest initiative comes after Target in 2017 announced that it would raise its hourly minimum wage to $15 by 2020, making it one of the first major retailers to do so, according to The Associated Press. 

Some of Target’s rivals, including Best Buy, have raised their hourly minimum wages for employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Costco raised its hourly minimum wage from $16 to $17, and Amazon’s starting wage is $15 an hour, with an average starting wage for transportation and fulfillment jobs of $18 per hour.

Walmart boosted its hourly minimum wage for employees to $12 an hour, raising the hourly wages for more than 565,000 store workers by at least a dollar as well, the AP noted.