Walmart is cutting hundreds of corporate jobs across the U.S. and asking remote workers to return to the office, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The retail giant, which is the country’s largest employer, is also asking workers based out of its smaller Atlanta, Dallas and Toronto offices to relocate to one of its larger central hubs, according to the WSJ. Walmart is headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, though it also has hubs in Hoboken, New Jersey and Northern California.
Walmart did not respond to a request by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for comment. It did not confirm the number of jobs it will cut.
The move comes less than two years after Walmart announced plans to open a technology hub and hire for more than 100 associate roles like data scientists and software engineers in Atlanta. The company subleased two floors of space at the Coda office building in Midtown, or around 20,000 square feet, according to real estate database CoStar Group.
The fate of the Atlanta hub, along with Dallas and Toronto, is unclear. In the spring of last year, the company closed tech hubs in Austin, Texas; Carlsbad, California; and Portland, Oregon. It also began requiring its tech workers to return to the office at least two days per week.
Walmart is one of several corporate giants cutting costs as high inflation and high interest rates squeeze bottom lines. For some companies, this can take the form of laying off a percentage of its workforce, or implementing return-to-office mandates that could cause some workers to voluntarily leave. For others, cost savings look like shedding office space, which is typically a company’s largest expense.
In April, Walmart confirmed it would close all of its health clinics and shut down its virtual care service because it was “not a sustainable business model.” The clinics are separate from the retailer’s in-store pharmacies and vision centers, which remain unaffected.
The company has slashed thousands of fulfillment jobs over the last two years. In late 2022, Walmart laid off 1,400 workers at an e-commerce fulfillment center in Union City.
Walmart has around 1.6 million employees in the U.S., including both hourly and salaried. It is unclear how many are based out of Atlanta.
The company will report its first quarter earnings later this week. In its most recent quarterly results, Walmart reported $173.4 billion in total revenue, which was up 5.7% year over year.
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