Wal-Mart To Eliminate 1500 Back-Office Jobs At US Stores

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is cutting jobs in accounting and other back-office positions at about 500 locations in the Western region of the U.S.

Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg says the move will affect two or three people per store, totaling as many as 1,500 workers. But those employees are expected to be offered positions that will involve direct contact with shoppers, such as working in the online pickup department or as pharmacy technicians.

Lundberg says that the goal is to get workers out of the backrooms and onto the selling floor where they can interact more closely with customers.

It comes as Wal-Mart is trying to boost sales in light of increased competition from all fronts.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WAL_MART_JOB_CUTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-06-15-19-17-06

[LiberalFighter]

1. They should cut the stockers by 75 percent.

[christx30]

2. They should move those stockers

to the check out stands.

[rurallib]

3. I don't go in to Wally much but when I do the shelves are empty

and there are no cashiers.
We have just a couple things we buy there anymore. Man, there shelves are so empty and I always plan on waiting in line....

[PinkTiger]

8. stockers????

Most of those stocking the shelves work for the suppliers.

[Boldine]

4. Well those Waltons have to live in the manner

they have grown accustomed to.

So why did Walmart have all these positions that they suddenly don't need? Who is going to do that work now?

And why does a company that just posted very good profits feel the need to cut jobs?

And is this double speak - employees are expected to be offered positions ?

[ailsagirl]

5. Walmart would...

[romanic]

6. And despite all that

Wally world will still fail to get more employees on the sales floor and in the check out lanes to make shopping thier less of a pain.

[Crash2Parties]

7. Wait - what?

" those employees are expected to be offered positions that will involve direct contact with shoppers"

So you take people in accounting & offer them customer contact positions? And that's going to get customers to like your service *more* somehow? Has it occurred to the brilliant people at the corporate office that perhaps that might not be the best fit - okay, a terrible one? Or was this so that the back office people quit instead of the company actually having to fire them?

[Sherman A1]

9. I believe

there are several factors at work here.

1). more automation of the back office that began with the advent of computerization decades ago. Some of the work will be automated, some will be dumped on others to complete in addition to their current duties.

2). a real shortage of available workers at the Retail level, hence the need to look internally for positions that can be eliminated and those workers moved into sales/customer assistance.

3). as always cost cutting.