Walmart Inc announced plans to establish four additional fulfillment facilities in the United States over the next two years, resulting in the creation of 4,000 new jobs that will help the company extend its delivery network and make workers’ tasks simpler.
Companies are struggling to attract and keep workers in a tight labor market, prompting these actions. The nation’s largest retailer also aims to expand its education and training program started for U.S. employees in 2016 to all worldwide employees.
According to corporate officials, the new facilities in Joliet, Illinois, McCordsville, Indiana, Lancaster, Texas, and Greencastle, Pennsylvania, may enable next-day and two-day delivery to 75 percent of the US population.
After an annual conference in Bentonville, Arkansas, supply chain executives informed the media that when combined with current distribution facilities and orders completed out of shops, delivery could reach 95 percent of the population.
The additional posts are in addition to the 20,000 supply chain positions announced by the retailer last year. According to the corporation, the new employees’ hourly beginning salary would range from $16 to $28 per hour.
According to Mike Prince, vice president of supply chain innovation and automation, the new facilities will reduce the number of stages in processing orders from 12 to five, boost storage capacity, and handle twice as many client orders per day.
Each plant, which spans over a million square feet (92,900 square meters), will employ at least 1,000 people.
The corporation, which employs 2.3 million people, said in the summer that it would be testing a new initiative to provide recent college graduates and students within a year of graduation a chance to restart their careers.
“By building a ladder of opportunity for our employees, we want to transform even more jobs into careers,” Chief Executive Doug McMillon said at the annual general meeting on Wednesday.
More than 1,200 new store, club, and supply chain managers are expected to join the College2Career program in the United States, according to the firm.
It further said that top achievers may be offered a newly established management position of emerging coach, with a starting salary of at least $65,000 per year.
According to the corporation, the post provides a speedier path for high-potential individuals to become store managers, who earned an average compensation of roughly $210,000 in 2021.
It operates over 5,000 locations in the United States, with yearly revenues of more than $100 million on average.
According to McMillon, the average hourly compensation for workers at its U.S. shops, clubs, and supply chain has now surpassed $17, up from $16.40.
