Amazon extends free Prime membership to warehouse workers, but corporate employees left out ahead of holiday rush – Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Ahead of the busy holiday season and a Prime Day-like sale on October 8th and 9th, Amazon.com Inc. Amazon has announced new benefits for its warehouse employees that will come into effect next year.

What happened: The new perk comes with a pay raise of at least $1.50 per hour for field workers. Prime membership, introduced in 2005, now costs $14.99 per month or $139 per year and offers several benefits. The company told Fortune that the free Prime membership is available exclusively to field workers.

Amazon’s Vice President of Worldwide Operations, Udit Madanexplained in a blog post that field sales employees are critical to delivering Prime benefits to customers. However, this benefit is reserved exclusively for warehouse workers; corporate employees must still pay for their subscriptions themselves.

Despite the wage increase, warehouse workers’ salaries remain significantly lower than those of corporate employees. According to ZipRecruiter, the average corporate employee at Amazon earns $133,000 a year.

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Why it is important: The announcement comes at a time when Amazon is making several strategic moves. On Thursday, Amazon launched Project Amelia, a generative, AI-powered personal assistant designed to help U.S. sellers with personalized responses and updates.

Amazon ended its remote work policy and required a return to full-time office work starting in January.

This decision has attracted attention and criticism, especially from former employees such as John McBridewho raised the question of whether this move was a kind of “silent layoff” to reduce the number of employees and increase margins.

In addition, Amazon announced Wednesday that it would raise hourly wages above $29, an average raise of $3,000 per year for full-time workers. This $2.2 billion investment is part of the company’s efforts to improve worker compensation amid regulatory scrutiny and unionization efforts.

Amazon’s return-to-office mandate also extends to its A medical Subsidiary that requires its employees to come to the office three times a week starting in October.

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Photo courtesy: Unsplash

This story was created with Benzinga Neuro and edited by Kaustubh Bagalkote