American retail giant, Walmart Inc, is planning to cut several corporate roles in the ranks of the company as part of a corporate restructuring.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, nearly 200 employees of Walmart from various departments and segments would lose their jobs. Walmart Inc had already informed its employees in company headquarters in Arkansas and other corporate offices regarding the job cuts.
Walmart Inc, which started as Wal-Mart Discount City in 1962 is currently based in Bentonville, Arkansas, and has more than 10000 stores and clubs in 24 countries.
Spokesperson of Walmart Inc, Anne Hatfield, said in an email statement to Reuters that the company was updating its structure and “evolving” certain roles which could help in giving more clarity and a better position. She also mentioned that all these restructuring moves were part of making the company’s future strong.
The company, majorly owned by Walton Family, currently employs more than 2.3 million workers all over the world.
The spokesperson also said that the company is planning to invest in sectors such as e-commerce, technology, health, and wellness. Advertising sales and supply chain businesses are also targets of the company as it plans to expand itself from just being in the business of retail sales. She also said that Walmart would be creating new roles which would help the company in providing new and varied services to its customers, suppliers, and business community in general.
Another report by Bloomberg Business stated that people who are currently employed by the company in stores and supply chain networks, would not be affected by the recent job cut announcement. According to that report, the latest lay-offs would mostly impact jobs related to merchandising and last-mile delivery.
Cutting down Forecasts
A few days ago, in July, Walmart Inc announced it was cutting down forecasts on profit and EPS for the second quarter. Worsening inflation rates along with economic challenges slowed down buying in vital segments such as food and electronics. Due to a slump in demand and increasing inventory, the company had to deliberately reduce the prices of items on the racks, which led to losses in some cases.
This phenomenon forced Walmart Inc to redraw its forecasts for both annual numbers and quarter numbers. CEO of the company, Doug McMillon at that time, said that the markdown of prices on items such as clothing and FMCG hurt the margins of the company badly.
Walmart Inc is not the first company to announce job cuts, E-commerce giant Amazon Inc in its quarterly report for Q2 announced that it had cut the global workforce of company by 6%. CEO of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk also had earlier informed the decision to cut the workforce of the company as he was “feeling bad” about the US Economy.
