Walmart, $WMT, is firing hundreds of corporate jobs and asking most remote workers to return to offices
Walmart, $WMT, is firing hundreds of corporate jobs and asking most remote workers to return to offices.
Walmart Inc (WMT.N) announced on Tuesday that it intends to reduce its corporate headquarters' workforce and relocate most of its U.S. and Canada-based remote workers to three main offices, marking a change in strategy from its initial support for virtual work during the pandemic.
"We are asking the majority of associates working remotely, and the majority of associates within our offices in Dallas, Atlanta, and our Toronto Global Tech office, to relocate," wrote Donna Morris, Walmart's chief people officer, in a memo to its U.S. campus associates.
The world's largest retailer and the country's largest private employer, with 2.1 million workers globally, said most of the relocations will be to its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, with some moving to its offices in the San Francisco Bay Area or Hoboken, New Jersey.
The move aims to bring more people together more often and to strengthen Walmart's culture while developing employees' careers, Morris said in the memo. The company also mentioned reducing "several hundred" roles at its headquarters due to changes in some parts of its business, without providing further details.
The Wall Street Journal first reported news of the job cuts late on Monday. According to a source familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity with Reuters, remote workers were given until July 1 to decide whether to relocate or to quit with severance. Walmart will be closing its Dallas, Atlanta, and Toronto offices later this year.
Those who choose to leave will receive two weeks' pay for every year they worked at Walmart as severance, the source said. Walmart said it had discussions with affected employees and would work with them on the next steps.
Walmart, like other U.S. companies, is shifting its strategy towards more in-person work after years of pandemic-induced remote working. At one point, it endorsed remote work as the new norm but has since transitioned away from that stance. In 2023, it closed three tech offices and asked some staff to relocate to central corporate hubs.
In the meantime, Walmart is building a new headquarters in northwest Arkansas, which it plans to open in phases in 2025. The campus is designed to accommodate over 15,000 employees across 12 buildings, according to Walmart's website.
"This is likely just part of a broader push towards operational efficiency. The mandate that remote workers report into the office is the closest way to get people to quit instead of doing a layoff," said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, which holds Walmart in mutual funds and ETFs it manages.
"Giving people a choice to relocate to a hub isn't much of a choice. It's more of a choice of whether to quit or not," Jacobsen added.
Walmart is set to report first-quarter results on Thursday. Its shares were down 1% at $59.77 in afternoon trading on Tuesday.