Wal-Mart's Sam's Club to cut 2,300 workers

[unhappycamper]

http://gazette.com/wal-marts-sams-club-to-cut-2300-workers/article/feed/81905

Wal-Mart's Sam's Club to cut 2,300 workers
Updated: January 25, 2014 at 9:30 am • Published: January 25, 2014

NEW YORK (AP) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it's eliminating 2,300 workers at its Sam's Club division as it reduces the ranks of middle managers in a bid to be more nimble.

The layoffs, which cut 2 percent of the membership club's U.S. employee count of about 116,000, mark the largest since 2010 when the Sam's Club unit laid off 10,000 workers as it moved to outsource food demonstrations at its stores.

The cuts come as Sam's Club strives to compete better with Costco Wholesale Corp. and online players like Amazon.com's Prime membership service. They also follow layoffs announced by several other major retailers in recent weeks that include Macy's Inc., J.C. Penney and Target Corp.

Bill Durling, a spokesman at Sam's Club, says that a little less than half of the cuts were aimed at salaried assistant managers. The cuts are also eliminating some hourly workers. He says that each of the clubs had roughly the same number of workers regardless of how much revenue each store generated.

[Teamster Jeff]

1. I weep for the middle managers

Not really. These are the people trained in "union avoidance".

[FarPoint]

2. Costco rocks for me...

I boycott everything Walmart.