Target giving another $200 bonus to front-line workers

Target is once again paying front-line employees a $200 bonus to thank them for their work over the past few months.

On Thursday, the Minneapolis-retailer announced the bonus will be awarded to full- and part-time team employees in Target stores and distribution centers as well as headquarters staff who support its customer and employee contact centers. The bonuses will be paid out in August.

This bonus, an investment of $75 million by Target, will be the sixth paid to employees during the pandemic.

"Our team members continue to deliver each and every day for our guests and one another," said Melissa Kremer, Target's chief human resources officer, in a statement. "Our culture, strategy and success would not be possible without our incredible team at the center of it all."

Independent contractors working for Target-owned grocery delivery company Shipt are not included in the bonus program announced Thursday.

As the pandemic began to take hold in the United States early last year, workers' rights groups pushed for hazard pay for employees who worked the front lines at stores to keep shelves stocked despite the health risks.

A report released last November by the Brookings Institution concluded that many of the nation's top retail companies posted soaring profits last year, with an average of a 40% increase in profit. Pay for front-line workers increased an average of $1.11 per hour, or 10%, since the start of the pandemic.

The only three companies out of the more than a dozen that the report analyzed that bucked this trend were Target, Richfield-based Best Buy and Home Depot, all of which the report said provided the most pandemic compensation to workers through "temporary pay increases, bonuses and permanent wage increases."

Last summer, Target permanently raised its starting wage for U.S. employees to $15 per hour. Best Buy later instituted the same increase.