Walmart fires hundreds of workers and demands that remote workers move

Walmart announced layoffs at its campus offices on Tuesday, May 14, impacting several hundred employees. The majority of its remote employees and staff in its Dallas, Atlanta, and Toronto offices will have to move to its main headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, Hoboken, New Jersey, and the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the statement.

According to a Walmart staff document obtained by the news agency, the relocations would help achieve the objective of getting more people together more often. The message also mentioned how face-to-face interaction improves teamwork, fosters innovation, and accelerates progress.

No particular cause for the layoffs was given.

The message just said that certain areas of our company have made changes that would result in job losses as the basis for the layoffs. In response to inquiries about the rationale for the layoffs and the company’s efforts to combine additional office positions in California, New Jersey, and Arkansas, a Walmart representative did not immediately respond.

hundreds of jobs being cut

After originally supporting remote work during the epidemic, Walmart Inc. (WMT.N), which opened a new tab, said that it wants to restructure its corporate headquarters, eliminating hundreds of positions and moving the bulk of its remote workers headquartered in the US and Canada to three locations.

In a message sent on Tuesday to its employees on US campuses, Walmart’s chief people officer, Donna Morris, said, “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.”

With 2.1 million employees nationwide, this is the biggest retailer in the world and the largest private employer in the nation. The majority of the relocations will take place at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, with a smaller number going to its offices in the San Francisco Bay Area or Hoboken, New Jersey. Morris said in the message that the change was intended to enhance Walmart’s culture and advance the careers of its workers, in addition to bringing individuals together more often.

The retail behemoth said, without providing further details, that it was cutting several hundred positions at its headquarters as a result of adjustments in some areas of its operations. The job losses were initially revealed by The Wall Street Journal, which opened a new tab late on Monday.

According to a person familiar with the situation who spoke to Reuters under condition of anonymity, remote staff were given until July 1 to decide whether to relocate or to leave with severance pay during a business update call on Monday, May 13. The insider also said that later this year, Walmart will be shutting down its locations in Toronto, Atlanta, and Dallas.

Severance money equal to two weeks’ salary for each year of employment at Walmart will be given to departing employees, the person added. Walmart said that it has spoken with the directly impacted workers and will collaborate with them on the next actions.

Working remotely to become the new standard

Walmart is changing its approach, like with other US corporations, to focus more on in-person employment after years of pandemic-related distant work. It even accepted remote work as the new standard at one time.

“We think that working virtually will become the new norm in the tech industry, at least for the majority of the work we oversee,” said on LinkedIn in 2021 Suresh Kumar, the worldwide head of Walmart’s tech operations, on LinkedIn in 2021.

But it has gradually moved away from stance. It invited certain employees to transfer to major corporate centers after closing three tech offices in 2023. Walmart is building a new headquarters in northwest Arkansas in the meantime; it will open in stages in 2025 and is located not far from its old site. According to Walmart’s website, the vast 350-acre facility is built to house nearly 15,000 workers over 12 buildings.

Strive for increased operational effectiveness

The requirement that remote workers report into the office is the closest thing to forcing people to resign rather than lay them off, according to Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, which manages mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that hold Walmart. “This is likely just part of a broader push towards operational efficiency,” Jacobsen said.

“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 said.

On Thursday, the store is scheduled to release its first-quarter earnings. Tuesday afternoon trading saw a 1% decrease in Walmart shares, which were trading at $59.77.