Amazon Canada says it is hiring up to 15,000 more people in Canada and will boost the pay for its front-line workers to up to $21.65 an hour.
The e-commerce giant announced in a media release Monday morning that the hiring spree would boost its Canadian head count by about 60 per cent.
The wage hikes are immediate and will be for all current full-time and part-time staff, as well as new hires. While the company doesn’t specify what it means by “front-line worker,” the pay increases work out to an extra $1.60 to $2.20 per hour.
The moves to beef up compensation and employee numbers in Canada come as the company is making similar enticements in the U.S.
Monday’s Canadian release says that offer extends to Canadian workers, too, although details are sparse. The so-called Career Choice program for Canadian Amazon workers says the company will pay up to 95 per cent of the tuition costs “towards a certificate or diploma in qualified fields of study” at various colleges, although no complete list of qualifying schools or programs of study is provided.
Wage pressure growing
Economist Sal Guatieri of Bank of Montreal says Amazon is just the latest large employer having to step up its offerings in the face of what has become a seller’s market for labour. The U.S. economy currently has more job openings than unemployed people, and Canada is not far off from the same status, he said in an interview with CBC News.
“Many of the largest retailers in the U.S. and Canada have been raising their minimum pay to retain workers and attract new workers because their business is booming especially due to the surge in online shopping,” he said in an interview. But while sectors such as retail and hospitality are seeing big wage gains, those gains haven’t yet moved up the chain in a big way.
“Wage growth is running higher but it’s really not accelerating, it’s kind of stabilized,” Guatieri said. “It’s speaking to people just worried about losing their jobs and kind of not bargaining hard for wage increases.”
While many companies have managed to take advantage of that employment uncertainty and thus not had to raise wages, that isn’t the case for Amazon.
Daryl Boehringer, an analyst at independent stock research firm Edgewater, said in a recent note to clients that a lack of labour is slowing the fast-growing company.
“Amazon is having more serious issues hiring people at the [fulfilment centre] level specifically and it’s getting worse,” he said. “[They] are drowning, even with limited inventory flow. It’s because they have less personnel to turn goods around.”
Boehringer noted that the company increased its total U.S. employment by more than 60 per cent in 2020, and now employs 750,000 people in the that country alone.
“We have heard that Amazon may be seeing a higher degree of employee churn and/or challenges in converting new hires to full-time employees in the wake of ongoing stimulus benefits and constrained labour conditions,” he said.
TORONTO – Restaurant Brands International Inc. reported net income of US$357 million for its third quarter, down from US$364 million in the same quarter last year.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says its profit amounted to 79 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with 79 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue for the parent company of Tim Hortons, Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs, totalled US$2.29 billion, up from US$1.84 billion in the same quarter last year.
Consolidated comparable sales were up 0.3 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Restaurant Brands says it earned 93 cents US per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 90 cents US per diluted share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Fortis Inc. reported a third-quarter profit of $420 million, up from $394 million in the same quarter last year.
The electric and gas utility says the profit amounted to 85 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 81 cents per share a year earlier.
Fortis says the increase was driven by rate base growth across its utilities, and strong earnings in Arizona largely reflecting new customer rates at Tucson Electric Power.
Revenue in the quarter totalled $2.77 billion, up from $2.72 billion in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Fortis says it earned 85 cents per share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 84 cents per share in the third quarter of 2023.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 82 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
TORONTO – Thomson Reuters reported its third-quarter profit fell compared with a year ago as its revenue rose eight per cent.
The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, says it earned US$301 million or 67 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30. The result compared with a profit of US$367 million or 80 cents US per diluted share in the same quarter a year earlier.
Revenue for the quarter totalled US$1.72 billion, up from US$1.59 billion a year earlier.
In its outlook, Thomson Reuters says it now expects organic revenue growth of 7.0 per cent for its full year, up from earlier expectations for growth of 6.5 per cent.
On an adjusted basis, Thomson Reuters says it earned 80 cents US per share in its latest quarter, down from an adjusted profit of 82 cents US per share in the same quarter last year.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 76 cents US per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
