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Amazon set their minimum wage to $15 / hour starting Nov. 1, 2018
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The Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) program will be phased out for order fulfillment and customer service employees
Amazon recently announced that they will be raising their minimum wage to $15 / hour. In the same blog post they said that they will also be phasing out their RSU program, which offers employees shares of stock when hired and an additional stock option each year.
Amazon seems to be responding to pressures from elected officials and the media. An article published by The Intercept revealed that 33% of Amazon employees in Arizona will be using SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) as are about 1,000 workers in Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, an estimated $24.8 million in additional subsidies support 13 Amazon warehouses employing around 10,000 workers.
Amazon states that phasing out the RSU program for hourly employees will offer “significantly more total compensation for employees, without any vesting requirements, and with more predictability.” The actual effect of this policy is still to be determined. It is also uncertain what impact this new policy will have on the reliability of Amazon’s hourly workforce or increasing costs passed along to Sellers.
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