Walmart, a retail giant, laid off more than 2000 warehouse staff that commonly work to fulfill website orders. It happened a few weeks after Walmart warned that the company encountered a tough year in the future. In total, they cut more than 1000 jobs in Texas, 400 in Florida, 600 jobs in Pennsylvania, and 200 in New Jersey. In total there are around 2000. This data refers to Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification (WARN). The first to report was Reuters saying that the job cuts happened due to reductions and eliminations in the weekend and evening shifts.
However, Walmart did not give an immediate response to the media for comments. Therefore, it is not clear whether it is just the end or beginning of layoffs. Furthermore, it is also uncertain about whether or not it could affect other large businesses. Based on the company’s most recent earnings, Walmart warned investors that they should not expect fast sales and profit growth. At the same time, the company will also raise the average minimum wage from $12 to $14 per hour. In the meantime, they retain store workers in a tight labor market. \\
This becomes the reason why there is an effect to profit. Margins continue to squeeze. Then, lower-income shoppers continue to struggle due to inflation. Thus, they would not expect high sales this year. John Rainey, Walmart CFO said that the customer recently is still having a hard time. Based on the economic indicators, balance sheets are running thinner plus savings rates decline. This becomes the reason why the company takes cautions to survive the whole year. Compared to Amazon, Walmart has never experienced mass layoffs.
