Amazon to end wage increases, double overtime pay at end of May; will Jeff Bezos become trillionaire

Amazon workers have been getting paid extra during the coronavirus pandemic, but the temporary wage increases and double overtime pay will be coming to an end.

Amazon officials have extended the additional pay through May 30, CNBC reported.

Warehouse workers and drivers have been getting an additional $2 an hour as well as double hourly wages for overtime work.

The total salary cost is almost $800 million, Reuters reported.

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CNBC and Vox’s Recode reported that extra pay will end by June.

The temporary pay increase was announced on March 16, set to end in April. It was extended to May 16 and now finally May 31, Recode reported.

“We’re going to do one more extension on it and push it out until the end of the month,” Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, told Recode.

The company has also ended its unlimited unpaid time off policy that workers said allowed them to stay home, unpaid, but not be penalized for missing work, CNBC reported. Amazon officials said the company still provides flexibility in scheduling through its leave-of-absence policy.

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At the same time, people on Twitter are debating if Amazon owner Jeff Bezos will become a trillionaire because of the pandemic and the demand on the online retailer for products as people are stuck at home, Forbes reported.

The discussion about Bezos net worth actually comes from a study published by a small business advisory group that claimed Bezos could hit $1 trillion by 2026.

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But Bezos is far from hitting the trillion mark. As of March 14, Forbes estimated his net worth as $143 billion.