(MENAFN- AFP) Discount retailer TJX Wednesday announced it would raise minimum wages for its US workers, essentially matching an announcement last week from larger rival Wal-Mart Stores.
The TJX Companies, which owns Marshall's, TJ Maxx and other discount apparel and home-goods chains, will hike wages of US staff to at least $9 an hour beginning in June and at least $10 per hour in 2016.
"This pay initiative is an important part of our strategies to continue attracting and retaining the best talent," said TJX chief executive Carol Meyrowitz.
The US company employs about 191,000 workers worldwide, with the vast majority of its 3,395 stores located in the United States.
Some analysts had predicted more retailers would hike wages to compete for staff after Wal-Mart, the country's largest private employer, last week said it would lift the minimum wage for 500,000 workers in the US.
Other leading retailers, including Gap and Ikea, raised minimum wages for US staff in 2014.
The moves follow mounting criticism by labor unions and other groups that extremely low wages have locked workers into poverty and pressured some of them to seek public assistance to make ends meet.
President Barack Obama has also made the issue of low pay and a growing income gap across the country a key focus of his economic policy. The White House has called for raising the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, the base level nationwide, to be raised to $10.10 per hour. It was last raised in 2009.
The most recent Labor Department monthly jobs report showed a 0.5 percent rise in US wages in January from the prior month, suggesting a tightening labor market.
TJX listed the wage hike as among the factors that would trim about four percent from annual earnings for fiscal 2016.
However, the company combined Wednesday's announcement on wages with news of a 20 percent dividend increase and a new share repurchase program. Earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter ending January 31, 2015, rose 11.3 percent to $648 million, said the Framingham, Massachusetts-based company.
TJX shares gained 0.8 percent in mid-morning trade at $67.69.
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