Walmart plans to lay off hundreds of employees in California and Texas over the course of the coming months.
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The big-box retailer will eliminate 180 corporate roles at its Sunnyvale, Calif. office and 388 positions at its location in San Bruno, Calif. by Aug. 9, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications ( WARN ) filing with the California Employment Development Department (EDD) last week. The roles mostly support the corporation’s e-commerce operations.
In an email to employees obtained by a California Fox News affiliate, Walmart chief people officer and executive vice president Donna Morris said, “[S]ome parts of our business have made changes that will result in a reduction of several hundred campus roles.”
“While the overall numbers are small in percentage, we are focused on supporting each of our associates affected by these changes,” she added.
Meanwhile, the majority of employees currently working remotely across the U.S., as well as those at Walmart’s offices in Dallas, Atlanta and Toronto, will be asked to relocate to the firm’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., the San Francisco Bay Area, or Hoboken, N.Y., Morris’ email said.
A memo to California EDD supports the communication to employees, saying Walmart doesn’t expect all employees impacted by the decisions to experience job loss.
Walmart president, CEO and director C. Douglas McMillon reiterated the company’s plans on an earnings call May 16. “Earlier this week we also shared decisions to eliminate some home office roles and reduce the amount of remote work,” he said. “The vast majority of our home office associates have been back together in offices since we came back from the pandemic and we want to see even more of that. Being in person is important.”
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This week, Walmart made even deeper cuts in Texas .
The company filed WARN notices which indicate that 1,472 jobs at a Dallas-based office and a call center are on the chopping block. The company has reportedly offered some employees the option to transfer to other offices. Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comments on the layoffs.
The Texas cuts come just days after the company announced that it beat its quarterly earnings and revenue projections. Net income reached $5.10 billion during Q1 compared with $1.67 billion during the year-ago period.
To keep the momentum going and address shoppers’ lingering inflation anxieties, Walmart said it plans to slash prices on about 7,000 products—a move employed by Target earlier this week. On Monday, the competitor knocked down prices on 1,500 household items, with more rollbacks expected throughout the summer.
“Together with our suppliers we’re making progress lowering prices,” McMillon said, noting, “Our combination of everyday low prices plus a large number of rollbacks is resonating.”
Meanwhile, the company is leaning into e-commerce , having delivered better-than-expected results during the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Store-fulfilled pickup, delivery and advertising propelled online sales growth to 22 percent, with higher-income shoppers accounting for the majority of the gains. In February, McMillon said the company is racing toward e-commerce profitability.
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