Why Retailers Are Suddenly Desperate to Keep Their Least-Valuable Workers

If the ability to throw a 100-mile-per-hour fastball sits at one end of the human-capital spectrum, stocking shelves and swiping bar codes is at the opposite. But the U.S. economy gets on quite nicely with just a few dozen ace pitchers, while it takes vast stadiums of cashiers—and no small amount of investment in human capital—to keep things humming.

A modest bidding war has broken out among the retailers who hire from the bottom of the labor pool, buoyed in part by improving sales. Wal-Mart moved to raise the pay for its lowest-level workers to at least $9 an hour, a decision quickly matched by TJX, the parent company of TJ Maxx and Marshalls. Gap, Starbucks, and IKEA had already joined the growing list of service sectors now committed to higher starting wages, with tens of thousands of low-paid workers affected by recent changes.