Walmart to lay off hundreds of corporate staff, relocate others, WSJ reports

FILE PHOTO: View of Walmart's newly remodeled Supercenter, in Teterboro, New Jersey, U.S., June 7, 2023. REUTERS/Siddharth Cavale/File Photo

(Reuters) -Walmart is cutting hundreds of corporate jobs and asking most remote workers to move to offices, the Wall Street Journal reported late on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Workers at the U.S. retail giant's smaller offices in Dallas, Atlanta and Toronto are being asked to move to other central hubs such as Walmart's corporate base in Bentonville as well as Hoboken or Southern California, the report said.

The company will still let staff work remotely part time, as long as they are in offices a majority of the time.

Walmart, which employed about 2.1 million associates as of Jan. 31, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The job cuts at Walmart also underscores the retail giant's efforts to cut costs as discretionary spending in the United States remains strained.

Spending among Americans remained weak compared to 2021, at least for non-essential, discretionary merchandise like clothing, according to surveys by Deloitte.

Late last month, Walmart said it would close all 51 of its health clinics and shut its virtual health care operations, saying it could not see it as a sustainable business model.

The company also said last year it expects about 65% of its stores to be serviced by automation by the end of its fiscal year 2026.

The retailer is set to report first-quarter results on Thursday.

(Reporting by Kanjyik Ghosh and Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Arun Koyyur)