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Walmart Promotes 70,000 Workers
Written by Tim Morral
Published: 9/27/2013
The retail giant's move to promote temporary and part-time employees follows staffing shortages and an inability to adequately stock store shelves; brand will hire 55,000 workers for the holiday shopping season.
In an era of tepid hiring and full-time staff reductions, Walmart has announced that it is promoting 35,000 part-time workers to full-time status as well as another 35,000 temporary workers to part-time status.
The retail giant also announced that it plans to hire 55,000 seasonal workers during the holiday shopping season, up from 50,000 seasonal workers in 2012. According to a company spokesman, many of the 70,000 employees being promoted will come from the ranks of temporary workers who will keep their positions after the holiday season and stay on with the company in a permanent role.
Walmart's move to leverage a variation of internal recruiting to increase its workforce follows reports that the retailer was experiencing staff shortages and was concerned about its ability to keep shelves stocked following the brand's most recent expansion.
For some, Walmart's decision to add a large number of full-time workers may appear to go against the grain, especially since the workers promoted to full-time status will now be eligible for health insurance benefits. With the implementation of the ACA legislation looming, many retailers are reducing their full-time workforces or finding other ways to limit the number of employees covered by company insurance plans.
"(The new full-timers will be eligible for health benefits and will be) getting the consistent full-time hours they're looking for," Walmart spokesman Kory Lundberg told the Franchise Herald.
The Franchise Herald also reports that over the past five years, Walmart and Sam's Clubs reduced their U.S. workforces by 120,000 employees to 1.3 million. So despite the dollar impact on health benefits, the decision to increase its workforce in the coming months is a positive sign for both Walmart and the U.S. economy as a whole.
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