Walmart will lay off more than 2,000 workers at five US warehouses that fill orders from websites, weeks after the largest private US employer warned it was in for a tough year.
The retail giant will cut more than 1,000 jobs in Texas, 600 in Pennsylvania, 400 in Florida and 200 in New Jersey, according to data from the WARN (Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification) notification. Reuters first reported last month that the job cuts were due to the reduction and elimination of night and weekend shifts.
Walmart did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. It is not clear if this is just the beginning or the end of the layoffs affecting many large companies.
In the company’s most recent results, Walmart told investors to expect slower sales and profit growth. It also recently announced that it will raise its average minimum wage from $12 to $14 an hour, in an attempt to retain store workers in a tight labor market for lower-paying industries.
This will hit profits, squeezing margins at the same time that its lower-income top buyers continue to be affected by inflation, which could hurt their sales this year.
“The consumer is still under a lot of pressure,” Walmart CFO John Rainey told CNBC in February. “And if you look at the economic indicators, balance sheets are thinning and savings rates are falling relative to prior periods. And so we have a pretty cautious outlook for the rest of the year.”
