Walgreens will increase starting pay to $15/hr for all employees
Pharmacy chain Walgreens announced it will increase the starting hourly wage for all employees to $15 an hour, taking effect in phases beginning in October, expecting to fully implement it by Nov. 1, 2022.
The pay raise will apply to Puerto Rico employees across Walgreens’ 106 stores, Eileen Ortega, director of operations for Walgreens Puerto Rico, confirmed to News is my Business.
However, as of press time, it was unclear how many employees would benefit in Puerto Rico.
“I am extremely proud and grateful of the work our team members are doing across our 9,000 Walgreens locations serving our customers, patients and communities each and every day,” said Roz Brewer, CEO, Walgreens Boots Alliance.
“Investing in and rewarding our team members is not only the right thing to do, but also highly important to retaining and attracting a talented workforce, and to continuing to serve our critical role in community health care,” he added.
The raise comes at a time when Puerto Rico has recently approved a phased-in increase of the local minimum wage to $8.50 an hour.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Walgreens has made additional investments in support of its employees — which it calls its “team members” — including bonus payments and a hiring initiative, through which the company added 25,000 full-time and part-time pharmacy team members.
Walgreens has also accelerated implementation of remote and digitalized pharmacy resources to enable pharmacists to spend more time with patients, and to allow all store team members to deliver the best service and care to customers and patients.
Walgreens will invest some $450 million to support the starting wage increase over the next three years, with one-third of the amount invested in Fiscal 2022.
The company anticipates that it will partially absorb the investment through the normal course of business, it stated.
Reporter Michelle Kantrow-Vázquez contributed to this story.
