Many Fresno jobs have soared since Amazon, Ulta Beauty opened centers. How about wages?
It’s been almost three years since retail giants Ulta Beauty and Amazon opened huge new distribution centers at the south end of Fresno, accompanied by fanfare from city leaders who hailed the flurry of jobs the two companies were expected to create.
In the third quarter of 2017, before the two companies launched their operations here, the general warehouse industry across Fresno County accounted for just over 1,100 workers. Since mid-2018, when both warehouses opened, the number of jobs in general warehousing has quadrupled, reaching more than 4,500 by last fall, according to the most recent estimates by state and federal labor officials.
The promise of good-paying jobs were at the root of tax rebates and financial incentives potentially worth millions of dollars provided by the city of Fresno to the two companies.
But in an interesting paradox, those large job gains within the warehouse sector have not been accompanied by an increase in average wages for warehouse workers. Instead, the state and federal Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages shows that the average weekly wage for a worker in the general warehousing sector has fallen by more than 80% since the fall of 2017.
A year before Amazon and Ulta arrived on the scene in Fresno, the average weekly wage for a worker in the sector was $842. By the fall of 2018, after the two warehouses were up and running, the average had dropped to $455 per week.
In the most recent available QCEW data, from the fall of 2020, the average wage was $465 per week. By contrast, the average wage across all private-sector employees in Fresno County – an estimated 311.,208 workers – in the fall of 2020 was reported at $884 per week.
The QCEW employment and wage figures make no distinction between full-time and part-time workers; a large number of part-time employees would have the effect of lowering the average wage relative to a situation in which more jobs were filled on a full-time basis.
The data also do not offer an indication of how many workers moved over from lower-wage jobs in other sectors such as agriculture, fast food or retail. Unlike many other minimum-wage jobs, Amazon also offers medical insurance, life insurance and a 401(k) retirement savings program for its employees.
When Amazon was in the midst of its initial hiring in Fresno in the spring of 2018, job postings indicated a pay rate of $11.75 per hour for its warehouse associate jobs, and $13.55 for lead fulfillment associates. Within months of opening the Fresno “fulfillment center,” Amazon announced that it was raising the minimum wage for all of its employees nationwide to $15 per hour – a significant increase for many of the local workers.
Ulta Beauty, in the meantime, was offering starting pay of $13 to $18 per hour for most of its materials-handling jobs when it was doing its initial hiring in late 2017 and early 2018.
The city’s financial incentives to Ulta Beauty were valued at up to $18 million over 30 years, representing rebates of property taxes and sales taxes contingent upon creating at least 500 full-time jobs by 2022.
The package approved for Amazon also included rebates of property and sales taxes worth up to $30 million over 30 years, on the condition that Amazon would create the equivalent of at least 750 full-time jobs.
This story was originally published May 23, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
