COMP News – In a move to retain and attract new talent, Amazon has doubled its salary cap to $350,000 for administrative positions.

Amazon is dramatically increasing salary caps for its US-based technology and corporate workforce, in a nod to how the pandemic has exacerbated an already fierce competition for talent nationwide. The e-commerce and cloud computing giant announced in an internal blog post Monday that the company’s maximum base pay in the United States is more than doubling, to $350,000 a year from $160,000.

The blog post also stated that Amazon is increasing pay for most global positions in addition to the doubled salary cap. However, they did not specifically state how much of a salary increase those jobs will receive.

The blog post, a copy of which CNN reviewed, added that Amazon (AMZN) is also “increasing overall compensation ranges for most jobs globally, and the increases are much more considerable than we’ve done in the past.” Those changes apply to Amazon corporate and technology employees worldwide.

In addition to doubling the salary cap, Amazon also stated that employees will receive a portion of their new compensation benefits as stock options.

The change comes as Amazon kicks off its annual performance evaluation season this week. An additional change, the blog post said, is that employees who are promoted into a new pay band will see the results of that promotion in the year it occurs through the granting of additional mid-year stock compensation. Previously, the post said, promotions only provided “a base pay increase prior to the next annual compensation cycle.”

In an overwhelmingly competitive job market, Amazon recognizes that it will have to make compensation structure changes to maintain its workforce.

To read more about Amazon’s salary caps, click here.

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