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IKEA Voluntarily Raising Minimum Wage For Workers

FRISCO, TX (CBS 11)  -- IKEA Home Furnishings is announcing it will join in on a national and local trend of voluntarily increasing  its employees minimum wages.

The plan will go into effect January 15, 2015, and said to effect about half of IKEA's workforce. Although, the dollar amount differs from city to city the new average has been set at about $10.76 an hour. The new minimum wage for IKEA employees at the Frisco store in North Texas will be $9.43 an hour.

In a statement, IKEA's acting president and CFO Rob Olson said, " At IKEA, we are guided by our misson to create a better everyday life for the many people, a vision that included our co-workers, customers and the communities impacted by our business."

SMU economist Mike Davis said,  "Stores like IKEA you may think that it is minimum waged unskilled work, but they need people who are good at their jobs. They need people who can come to work on time, be good at their jobs, and communicate with customers."

He also said, the move is a sign that the economy is shaping up and that employers are willing to pay for quality employees.

Davis added, "If we want good people to work for us. We've got to pay."

IKEA officials said in a statement that their change in salaries were due in part to calculations by the MIT Wage Calculator. The calculations considered things like housing, food, transportation, and medical expenses.

(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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