T-Mobile raises minimum wage to $20 an hour

T-Mobile is now paying a minimum wage of $20 an hour to all of its 75,000 workers. Mike Sievert, CEO wrote in a blog post and announced that the company's new minimum wage increase "is about inclusion, and we wanted to draw a line that ensures no employee is left behind." The news from T-Mobile coincides with the Labor Department's data showing the lowering value of pay to workers faced with the biggest jump in inflation in nearly four decades. 

Sievert wrote that the vast majority of the company's employees already earn more than that base. The company declined to say how many people were impacted by the new base pay, which took effect at the start of December. A spokesperson told CBS that T-Mobile previously followed federal and state rules but did not previously have a minimum wage. Callie Field, the company's chief customer experience officer recently told Bloomberg News that the company had lost a lot of its staff during the pandemic and in the midst of its merger last year with Sprint. Field told the news service that they hiked its base pay for those working in customer service from $15 an hour to $20 in a bid to fill 5,000 jobs in the next 18 months. 

Sievert also gave a nod to the difficulty in hiring and retaining workers in the current environment with hospitals, restaurants and farms among those contending with a dearth of workers. T-Mobile increased its minimum pay rate in its customer care group a few months ago and went from getting 300 applications a week to 4,000. "A 1,200+% increase!" Sievert wrote. 

Source: CBS News