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Walmart will lay off hundreds of workers and ask most of its remote workers to come into offices, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.
The retail giant is also asking workers based in its smaller offices, such as Dallas and Atlanta, to move to its main hubs, like Northern California or its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Remote work can continue, but only if employees spend the majority of their time in the office, according to the WSJ.
It is unclear what precipitated the changes at the nation’s largest private employer. The news of the layoffs and the move to centralize workers comes days before Walmart’s first-quarter earnings call May 16.
Walmart is not the only company to step up its return to the office mandate. Many major employers are clamping down on workers who do not abide by mandates to come into work, and foot traffic into office buildings across the country was up 19% year-over-year in March.
The company has made efforts to cut costs over the last year and shift more resources to priority areas, the WSJ reported. Another recent victim of the scaling-back has been the company’s healthcare business.
Last month, Walmart announced it would shutter 51 clinics and its telehealth business, citing rising operating costs and difficulties with reimbursements. Only last year, Walmart had planned to expand this arm of its business.
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