Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Walmart fires about 3,500 store co-managers

In the days since Walmart announced that it was raising its starting wage, giving out employee bonuses and expanding paid parental leave, the mega-chain has quietly tightened its belt in other areas. On Jan. 12, the company announced it is laying off about 3,500 salaried store co-managers, replacing them with 1,700 lower-paid assistant store managers, Matthew Boyle reports for Bloomberg.

Hours after Walmart's Jan. 11 announcement about the wages, which it credited to the recent corporate tax cut, the news media got wind that Walmart had abruptly closed 63 Sam's Club stores across the nation, with 9,400 employees. Some workers only found out that they had lost their jobs when they showed up to work to find a sign printed on the barred door. Ten of the Sam's Clubs will be turned into distribution centers for online orders, and employees will have the opportunity to apply for jobs there.  

Business Insider reporter Hayley Peterson, who broke the Sam's Club story, said on NPR, "It's highly unusual for companies as big as Walmart to not give employees notice about store closings," but that focusing on its online operation is a sound strategy for competing with Amazon.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We just lost a co manager.He had a heart attack and died at home,his daughter found him.He just lost his job.This is twice I know of in the last decade through no fault of his own this happened to him while employed by wal mart.The first time was after he had worked his way up to the market team.Then they cut out those positions.And now this.He was a father of five just trying to give his wife and kids a good life.The wal mart propaganda machine wants you to believe that they are giving out raises and bonuses because of a tax plan but that's just political rhetoric.There is a real cost here in human terms.