Wal-Mart give and take

TEXT OF STORY

SCOTT JAGOW: Wal-Mart has gotten plenty of criticism about how much, or how little, it pays its workers. Well, the retailer is doing something about it. Wal-Mart announced a plan yesterday to increase starting pay at a third of its US stores. The average will be six percent.

But it’s also capping wages on each type of job. Harley Shaiken is a labor economist at the University of California. He says Wal-Mart is giving with one hand and taking with the other.

HARLEY SHAIKEN: I think Wal-Mart is raising starting wages because it may be having trouble attracting qualified applicants in some markets. But on the other hand it’s trying to save money by capping what workers earn on a given job, meaning that they’ll need a promotion to earn more in the future.

Unions don’t seem too impressed by this move.

By the way, the average full-time wage at Wal-Mart is about $10 an hour.