Amazon Offers $500M Worth of Employee Bonuses

Pandemic bonuses are rolling at Amazon, which said Monday it has committed more than $500 million toward those employee rewards.

“Our front-line operations teams have been on an incredible journey over the last few months, and we want to show our appreciation with a special one-time ‘Thank You’ bonus,” said Dave Clark, Amazon vice president of worldwide operations.

The bonuses will go to workers who have been with Amazon through the month of June and will break down like this:

• $500 for full-time Amazon employees, Whole Foods Market employees, and Delivery Service Partner drivers

• $250 for part-time Amazon employees, Whole Foods Market employees, and Delivery Service Partner drivers

• $1,000 for all front-line Amazon and Whole Foods Market leaders

• $3,000 for our Delivery Service Partner owners

• $150 for each Amazon Flex driver with more than 10 hours in June

Also on Monday, Lowe’s announced a new round of bonuses for its hourly retail workers, and said its pandemic pay, bonus and community efforts have totaled some $450 million.

In spring, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said the retailer would spend $4 billion on COVID-related expenses getting products to customers and keeping employees safe.

"This includes investments in personal protective equipment, enhanced cleaning of our facilities, less efficient process paths that better allow for effective social distancing, higher wages for hourly teams, and hundreds of millions to develop our own COVID-19 testing capabilities," he said. "There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now, and the best investment we can make is in the safety and well-being of our hundreds of thousands of employees. I’m confident that our long-term oriented shareowners will understand and embrace our approach, and that in fact they would expect no less.”

Seattle-based Amazon is No. 2 on Progressive Grocer’s 2020 PG 100 list of the top grocers in the United States.