Amazon.com Inc. has increased the maximum base pay of workers in corporate and technology roles to $350,000, more than double the $160,000 that it offered previously.

The retail and cloud giant announced the move in a post published on its internal corporate website, GeekWire reported today. Amazon confirmed the pay base increase to the publication.

Amazon is “increasing overall compensation ranges for most jobs globally, and the increases are much more considerable than we’ve done in the past,” Amazon stated in the post published to its internal site.

The company historically offered lower base pay than some fellow tech giants, GeekWire reported, but made up the difference with other types of compensation such as restricted stock units. Those other compensation components will remain in place following the base pay increase.

Amazon said the move is aimed at helping it remain competitive when it comes to recruiting and employee retention. “This past year has seen a particularly competitive labor market and in doing a thorough analysis of various options, weighing the economics of our business and the need to remain competitive for attracting and retaining top talent, we decided to make meaningfully bigger increases to our compensation levels than we do in a typical year,” the company stated.

The news comes only a few months after Amazon announced plans to hire an additional 55,000 corporate and technology workers. The base pay increase could help Amazon with the recruiting effort, as well as advance any future hiring sprees that it launches. 

Amazon first detailed its plans to hire an additional 55,000 corporate and technology workers in September. At the time, the company had a total of 275,000 corporate and tech workers worldwide. The hiring spree is set to increase that number by about 20%.

In parallel, Amazon has been recruiting more frontline workers across its supply chain to support growing e-commerce demand. In September, the company announced plans to hire 125,000 workers for its fulfillment centers and transportation network. Amazon’s operating costs increased by $4 billion last quarter, partly because it has been offering higher wages to recruit and retain talent more effectively. 

Amazon offers various training and education benefits to workers, including access to programs that enable users to acquire cloud computing skills. The company’s training and education benefits are likely a contributor to the effectiveness of its recruiting efforts. Moreover, Amazon’s investments in this area are also advancing its push to add more workers across corporate and technology business units.

Last year, Amazon launched multiple training and education programs that help participants move to technology roles within the company. One program trains nontechnical workers to become data center operations experts. Another program enables participants to acquire skills related to user experience research and design. 

Amazon has been investing in new facilities to support its rapid workforce expansion initiatives. The company opened more than 250 new fulfillment centers, sortation centers, regional air hubs and delivery stations in the U.S. last year. It has been adding more offices in parallel to support the growth of divisions such as Amazon Web Services. 

Photo: Amazon