Walmart (NYSE:WMT) has announced that it’s increasing the minimum wage for its 500,000 United States workers.

The minimum wage for Walmart workers in the U.S. will be increased to $9 an hour. This change will affect roughly 40% of the company’s employees and is expected to go into effect by April. However, only about 6,000 of the company’s employees actually make the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, reports The New York Times.

The decision to increase the minimum wage for its U.S. workers comes as Walmart faces opposition from low-wage employees. The company has also had a strong fourth quarter for 2014 with earnings per share of $1.61 and an increase in shopper traffic, NYT notes.

Walmart has said that it’s going to continue working with employees and offer additional training. It predicts that this will affect its 2016 profit and that it will be somewhere between $4.70 to $5.05 per share, reports Fortune.

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