Bank of America announced a plan to raise the minimum wage for employees to $25 per hour

[Tomconroy]

by 2025. Pretty remarkable. I'd link to the story if I could do links. It's up on Bloomberg news.
Sometimes the news is good.

[getagrip_already]

1. It's probably below what almost every bank employee makes anyway......

A lot of large companies sub out the hourly jobs to contractors, so they aren't employees that would benefit from this change.

Guards, cleaning crews, and other low skill jobs are not direct employees in most cases. So while it sounds great, it is probably just a PR stunt in the end.

[jimfields33]

2. Possibly

I mean it might affect some tellers whose jobs are slowly going away.

[Tomconroy]

3. The story did say the bank will require its

contractors to pay at least $15 per hour.

[BannonsLiver]

4. LOL

You’ve obviously never worked at a bank.

In what world is a teller making $25 an hour?

[ProfessorGAC]

10. When I Was On BoD Of...

...a $300 million community credit union, the president only made sixty-something thousand a year, the operations VP (#2 in the place) made mid fifties.
Admittedly, that was 10 years ago, but that would be high 90s & around 80.
For the top people!
Now, we weren't BoA but I agree that their tellers, maintenance people administrative aids, etc. aren't making over 50 grand.
This new plan is a big boon to a lot of their workers.

[TxGuitar]

15. no kidding

Banks seriously underpay compared to other industries, at least in the IT world. I'd make a lot more if I switched back over to Oil and Gas, but I've been at the bank for 12 years, I've worked at home for about 5 years, pretty stress free overall so I don't feel the need to change. Maybe they rely on comfort?

[getagrip_already]

19. hmmm....

I used to work as an engineer at sybase. We serviced the top money houses in nyc, including banks.

At first, I was shocked at how many vice presidents I was dealing with on nut and bolt database issues. Then someone told me that DBA's in manhatten make so much the banks had to hire them in as VP's, since that was the only pay grade that went that high. They weren't fiduciary officers, just positional, but they still carried the title.

Certainly that is an exception to what people are saying. But I suspect that at BoA, the remaining tellers aren't your tellers of olds, but also do loans, account management, and other higher level jobs.

I know that at my small BoA branch, I have walked in to some business account stuff and a teller came out from behind the glass wall to handle it at a desk like a manager would.

So instead of having tellers as a stand alone job, they seemed to be more of a hybrid role with more responsibilities than just a teller.

Dunno, I'll defer to others on these points.

[Volaris]

13. No, but tellers are direct employees.. and 25 an hour for a bank teller job..

(meaning I can count back change in my head without a digital aid) is pretty tempting tbh; and 'bankers hours' isnt a perk to laugh at, imo...

[TxGuitar]

16. Banker's hours

there's something to that at least wrt holidays. Not a whole lot of people outside of government have all the Federal holidays off. Kind of nice to be off on President's Day, Columbus Day and all.

[BradAllison]

17. 3rd party contractors already had their pay raised on BOA's last raise in 2018

Source: My son works for BOA in a contractor position.

[lpbk2713]

5. I'm impressed with their generosity.

I closed out my accounts with them several years ago because
they were nickel and diming me for every little thing.

[greenjar_01]

6. For a 37.5 hour week

That's a stitch over $48,000 / yr.

[Sanity Claws]

7. But don't they offshore a lot of their so-called customer service work?

Also, some banks are closing a lot of their branches, meaning fewer workers.

I hate to be so cynical but I have my doubts about how meaningful this is.

[RegularJam]

9. They have spent about ten years....

making moves that have eliminated a lot of entry level jobs within the organization and outsourced a lot of their call centers.

[RegularJam]

8. Consider a bank without tellers.

B of A has been going aggressively in that direction. They also eliminated a considerable amount of their US call centers over the last five to ten years and outsourced them. The ones still in the US are very stressful and always involve sales. The pay is good for the US call center employees.

Getting to $25 is easy if you eliminate all of your more entry level positions, farm out call centers, and focus on sales during customer service calls being handled in the US.

B of A does have good paying jobs. Lots of them.

[MichMan]

12. One could always refuse to use electronic banking and go in the branch for cash etc?

Many people eschew self serve checkout lanes just because it costs jobs. ATM and debit cards are no different

[RegularJam]

14. Then you need to go somewhere other than B of A.

They are changing the industry.

I would not bank with them personally. There is currently nowhere else I would have my business accounts.

[Tomconroy]

11. CNN is reporting that when BOA raised wages from $15 to$20 an hour, a few years ago, it affected

the wages of 200000 workers. The increase will cost a few hundred milliion dollars a year.

[Johnny2X2X]

18. So it's significant

People here tend to try to poo poo these announcements, but it's very good news and they're setting the standard for their industry. There's competition for workers right now, other banks are going to have to pay to attract and keep the people they want.

Same with Amazon, they're hiring at $17 an hour makes the other warehouses in the region have to pay more or risk losing their labor.

And there's this thought that when UE runs out, there will be a massive wave of people looking for work. The UE rate is 6%, that's not very high, there will be people looking for jobs, but it's not going to be some huge wave. And for restaurants, I've got news for those managers and owners, your line cooks, bussers, and wait staff might not be coming back, they might be making $17 an hour at Amazon right now with benefits and a guarantee of steady work.