Amazon raises overtime pay for warehouse workers

Amazon.com said on Saturday it is raising overtime pay for associates working in its U.S. warehouses, as the world’s largest online retailer tries to meet the rapidly growing demand for online shopping from consumers stuck at home during the coronavirus outbreak.

Hourly workers at the warehouses will receive double pay for overtime, up from the 1.5-times rate, from March 15 to May 9, the announcement said.

“All hourly associates working in the U.S. Ops network will receive double their regular hourly rate for every overtime hour worked in a workweek,” the company said in a statement.

“This temporary increased overtime pay is effective March 15, 2020 and will continue through May 9. 2020.”

Stay-at-home directives in US

People in US are resorting to online shopping as the total number of known coronavirus cases has risen exponentially in recent days, climbing past 18,000 in a surge that health officials attributed in large part to an increase in diagnostic testing.

Expanding on social-distancing measures increasingly adopted at the local level, California Governor Gavin Newsom instituted the first statewide directive requiring residents to remain indoors except for trips to grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and other “essential businesses.”

Newsom’s order, announced late on Thursday, made allowances for the state’s 40 million people to briefly venture outside for exercise so long as they kept their distance from others.

On Friday, his counterparts in New York state, Illinois and Connecticut followed suit, and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he planned to issue similar directives on Saturday.

The five states where governors have banned or will soon ban non-essential businesses and press residents to stay inside are home to 84 million people combined, about a quarter of the entire U.S. population and account for nearly a third of the nation’s economy.

The state directives were for the most part issued without strict enforcement mechanisms to back them up.

“Summons and arrests is an option, but obviously that’s a last resort,” New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea told reporters on Friday, saying authorities would focus on urging New Yorkers to follow the new rules.

Even before the flurry of statewide stay-at-home orders, the coronavirus pandemic had virtually paralyzed parts of the U.S. economy and upended lifestyles over the past week, as school districts and colleges canceled classes and many companies were shuttered, either voluntarily or by local government mandates.

Washington state, which documented the first known U.S. coronavirus case in January and now accounts for the greatest number of deaths – 83 as of Friday – has since March 16 closed bars, restaurants, recreation venues and entertainment facilities, while banning all gatherings of more than 50 people.