The Seattle-based company said Wednesday the average pay is increasing to more than $23 per hour. Some of its most tenured employees will see an increase between $1.10 and $1.90 per hour. Full-time employees, on average, will see their pay increase by $1,600 per year.

Amazon also said it will lower the cost of its entry health care plan to $5 per week and $5 for co-pays, starting next year. Amazon said that will reduce weekly contributions by 34% and co-pays by 87% for primary care, mental health and most non-specialist visits for employees using the basic plan.

Amazon has a global workforce of 1.5 million workers.

Last December, seven Amazon facilities went on strike, an effort by the Teamsters union to pressure the e-commerce company for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.

That same month, Amazon reached a settlement with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that requires the online behemoth to adopt corporatewide ergonomic measures at facilities across the country. The agency claimed hazardous working conditions led to serious lower back and other musculoskeletal disorders at Amazon facilities.

In January 2024, Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said that average wages for hourly workers would exceed $18, up from $17.50. The increase was due to Walmart introducing some higher-paying hourly roles in its Auto Care Centers last year, among other changes, the company said.

Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, had announced in January 2023 that U.S. workers would get pay raises the following month, increasing starting wages to between $14 and $19 an hour. Starting wages had previously ranged between $12 and $18 an hour, depending on location.

At Minneapolis-based Target, the starting hourly wage ranges from $15 to $24 for workers employed at stores and distribution centers, depending on the location, company spokesman Brian Harper-Tibaldo said.

The average hourly wage for a Target store worker is more than $18, he said.

Flight attendants at Air Canada wrapped up voting Saturday on a tentative new contract, with 99.1% voting down the airline’s wage offer.

The airline says the wage portion will now be referred to mediation as previously agreed to by both sides.

“Air Canada and CUPE contemplated this potential outcome and mutually agreed that if the tentative agreement was not ratified, the wage portion would be referred to mediation and, if no agreement was reached at that stage, to arbitration,” the airline said in a statement.

“The parties also agreed that no labor disruption could be initiated, and therefore there will be no strike or lock-out, and flights will continue to operate.”

The Air Canada component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees says most terms would still form part of a new collective agreement with the airline, with the exception of the wage issue.

Air Canada restarted operations on Aug. 19 after reaching an agreement with the union for 10,000 flight attendants to end a strike that disrupted the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of travelers. The walkout impacted about 130,000 travelers a day at the peak of the summer travel season.