Walmart is scraping hundreds of corporate staff, restricts remote work: Report

Walmart is relocating workers to central hubs, reducing its workforce, and focusing on automation in stores.

Walmart is cutting hundreds of corporate jobs and asking most remote workers to move to offices, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Walmart is revamping more than 800 store locations and adding high-end products. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg (Bloomberg)

Meanwhile, workers at the U.S. retail giant's smaller offices in Dallas, Atlanta and Toronto are being asked to move to other central hubs such as Walmart's corporate headquarters in Bentonville as well as Hoboken or Southern California, the report added.

Walmart will still let staff work remotely part time, as long as they are in offices a majority of the time, the report said.

Walmart employed approximately 2.1 million associates as of Jan. 31, 2024, according to regulatory filings.

Walmart's modernization plan

The company has been making moves to shrink its workforce over the past year and had said in April last year that it expects about 65% of its stores to be serviced by automation by the end of its fiscal year 2026.

In February 2023, it shut three of its U.S. technology hubs and asked hundreds of workers to relocate to keep their jobs, pushing for more employees to report to work from office.

Walmart didn't immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.