Walmart's army of bakery decorators take the cake when it comes to hourly store pay

NEW YORK — Inside a in New Jersey, a worker puts the finishing touches on with an edible ink Sponge Bob on top. A colleague creates a rosette border for a different cake, while another co-worker frosts a tier of what will be a triple-deck dessert.

It’s , the busiest time of year for the 6,200 employees trained to hand-decorate cakes per customers' orders. The cakes themselves come, pre-made, frozen and in a variety of shapes and sizes, from suppliers, not Walmart's in-store bakeries.

But there’s no sugar-coating the importance the company places on its custom cake business. Its army of icing artisans are the highest paid in a typical U.S. Walmart, excluding managers. Cake decorators earn an average of $19.25 per hour, compared with $18.25 for all non-managerial store workers, a compa