Walmart is laying off hundreds of corporate employees and asking many of its remote workers to relocate back to central offices across the country, according to a memo sent to employees and viewed by Footwear News.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news on Monday.
In the Tuesday memo, Walmart’s chief people officer Donna Morris said Walmart workers in smaller offices in Dallas, Atlanta and Toronto will need to move to be closer to its larger hubs in Bentonville, Ark., Hoboken, N.J. and Northern California. Employees will still be able to work on a hybrid basis in these locations.
“In addition, some parts of our business have made changes that will result in a reduction of several hundred campus roles,” Morris wrote in the letter, which Walmart shared with FN in response to a request for comment. “While the overall numbers are small in percentage, we are focused on supporting each of our associates affected by these changes.”
In recent months, the phenomenon of companies suddenly changing working requirements, such as office mandates, for employees has become known as “quiet firing.” In many cases, organizations will push employees to quit their jobs rather than conducting layoffs.
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Walmart is the latest company to increase its in-office mandate for employees, following years of remote and flexible working arrangements from the pandemic. In January, Nike became the first major shoe company to publicly call its employees back to the office four days a week, a departure from the typical three-days-in-office hybrid model most shoe companies had adopted in a post-pandemic world. Other shoe companies like Adidas and Crocs have maintained their flexible hybrid models since the pandemic, and some have thrived while allowing employees to work in a fully remote environment.
Walmart announced last week it would close two additional stores, bringing its total closure tally to eight stores for 2024. Walmart employs about 1.6 million people in the U.S.
