Walmart is laying off hundreds of corporate workers across the country as it relocates many employees to its Arkansas headquarters.
The big-box retailer confirmed the layoffs and relocations in a memo sent to employees Tuesday.
In the memo, Chief People Officer Donna Morris said the move is meant to bring more of its employees back to the office after the Covid pandemic. The company brought corporate employees back to its Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters in February 2022.
Now, she said, Walmart is taking that a step further: The majority of employees working remotely and in offices in Dallas, Atlanta and Toronto have been asked to relocate. Most will be moved to the company’s Arkansas headquarters, but some will also relocate to offices in the San Francisco Bay Area or Hoboken, New Jersey, she said.
“In addition, some parts of our business have made changes that will result in a reduction of several hundred campus roles,” she said in the memo. “While the overall numbers are small in percentage, we are focused on supporting each of our associates affected by these changes.”
Walmart did not say how many people were affected by the cuts.
The news comes days before Walmart’s much-anticipated earnings report on Thursday.
The layoffs are the latest cost cut for the discounter. In late April, Walmart announced it would shutter 51 health clinics across Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas. The new clinics, which offered doctor, dentist and therapy appointments, were part of Walmart Health, a broad effort by the discounter to bring lower prices to the health-care industry. It had opened the health clinics next to its big-box stores, but said in an announcement on its website that the business was not financially sustainable.
Walmart is the nation’s largest private employer with about 1.6 million employees, most of whom work at its stores across the country.
Walmart has another reason to bring more employees to Bentonville: It’s building a nearly 350-acre campus there. The major development, which is well underway, includes 12 office buildings, along with parking lots, a hotel and other amenities. The campus’s first few buildings have already opened, including a fitness center and a daycare.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the layoffs and relocations.
Read the full memo from Morris to Walmart employees:
It has been a little over four years since we faced the global pandemic that reshaped our lives in many ways, including our ways of working. In February 2022, we made the decision to bring Home Office associates back into our campus offices. We believe that being together, in person, makes us better and helps us to collaborate, innovate and move even faster. We also believe it helps strengthen our culture as well as grow and develop our associates.
With the goal of bringing more of us together more often, 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. Most relocations will be to our Home Office in Bentonville, but some will be to our offices in the San Francisco Bay Area or Hoboken/New York.
In addition, some parts of our business have made changes that will result in a reduction of several hundred campus roles. While the overall numbers are small in percentage, we are focused on supporting each of our associates affected by these changes.
We have had discussions with associates who were directly impacted by these decisions. We will work closely with them in the coming days and months to navigate the best path forward.
This is developing story. Please check back for updates.