Walmart Stores Inc. (WMT) is geared to create jobs for the coming holiday season. It has announced that it will hire almost 55,000 seasonal associates this Christmas. This is 10% higher than what the retail giant hired a year ago.
Walmart is set to manage the outburst of customer inflow into its stores. To efficiently serve its customers, Walmart is also converting 35,000 associates from temporary to part-time and another 35,000 from part-time to full-time.
With declining same-store sales for the past few months, retailers across the U.S. are looking forward to turn around this holiday season. As quoted by Centre Bancorp Inc. (CNBC), Deloitte forecasts a 4% – 4.5% gain in sales in the November – January period. This is flat compared to the same period a year ago.
Walmart is offering lucrative deals, lower prices and one-stop shopping convenience to attract customers.
However, many other retailers are cautious and they have reduced their hiring compared to the year-ago level. Target Corp. (TGT) and Kohl’s Corp. (KSS) are hiring fewer employees than year-ago periods.
Walmart has been in favor of creating job opportunities for quite some time. As part of this strategy, in Aug 2013, WMT participated in the U.S. Manufacturing Summit along with nearly 500 suppliers and 1500 government officials to discuss opportunities to accelerate manufacturing and employment opportunities in the country. Together, they are expected to invest more than $70 million for factory growth and creation of more than 1,000 domestic jobs.
This initiative shows Walmart’s dedication to find innovative solutions to fix unemployment issues utilizing its leadership position. Being the largest private employer in the U.S., Walmart took an initiative in late-Jan 2013 to contribute to the revitalization of the sluggish U.S. economy and intends to spend $50 billion in the next 10 years to buy more American merchandise.
Walmart currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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