Apple Hikes Staff Salaries, Starting Hourly Wage Goes to $22 From $20

© Reuters

By Senad Karaahmetovic

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is planning to hike wages for its employees amid a period of record-high inflation and a troubled labor market.

Apple sent an email to employees telling them it is boosting its total compensation budget, increasing the starting hourly wage for its U.S. workers to $22, or more, depending on the market. The wage hike marks a 45% increase from Apple’s hourly pay in 2018.

“Supporting and retaining the best team members in the world enables us to deliver the best, most innovative, products and services for our customers,” an Apple representative told WSJ in a statement.

“This year as part of our annual performance review process, we’re increasing our overall compensation budget.”

The tech behemoth has been grappling with labor-related difficulties - from front-line store employees making unionization efforts to engineers voicing their concerns over Apple’s plans to bring them back to the office as the pandemic eased.

Apple informed some of its employees, including those working in stores and AppleCare, that their wage hikes will come into effect in early July and their annual reviews would be moved up three months.

The company also told these workers that their boosted compensation budget would come as an addition to the wage hike and special perks that were already received over the past year.

Tech companies have been fighting to retain talent in the recent period. In addition, one of their strongest compensation means, stock awards, has also been affected recently after a strong drawdown of the broader market and companies’ valuations.

Shares of Apple remain down nearly 23% since the start of the year.