Wal-Mart will give a half-million employees pay raises, the discount retail giant said Thursday as it announced a mixed quarterly earnings report.

Hourly workers will earn at least $1.75 above the current federal minimum wage, or $9 per hour, in April. By next February, it will rise to at least $10 per hour. Some jurisdictions already have a minimum wage at or above $9 per hour, including California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington state, Vermont and Rhode Island.

"I think it actually is good news," Deutsche Bank analyst Paul Trussell said about the wage move. "Frankly part of Wal-Mart's problem has been concerns around inventories being out of stock, been about bad customer service, long lines at the checkout counters. There's been a lot of disgruntled workers, and frankly this does sound like the new CEO both of the U.S. Wal-Mart team and Doug McMillon at the helm taking a step to perhaps correct those past evils."