None of Coachella Valley’s Walmart stores are among the 269 stores worldwide the retail giant announced Friday it will be closing, costing about 16,000 jobs.
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With most of the closed stores within 10 miles of another Walmart, “the hope is that these associates will be placed in nearby locations”, the company’s announcement said. Delia Garcia, a Wal-Mart corporate rep, said the company made a decision to close the stores based on financial performance, the cost of doing business and plans for strategic growth. As a result, Amazon, the leading e-commerce retailer, has had more than billion worth of online sales and Walmart has done a little over $13 billion, according to eMarketer data.
The Juneau Wal-Mart now has 181 employees.
He further added: “The decision to close stores is hard and we care about the associates who will be impacted”.
CEO Doug McMillon told investors three months ago previously that the world’s largest retailer would review its fleet of stores. The stores are about 12,000 square feet and sell essentials such as toothpaste.
The 115 store closings outside the US include struggling stores in Brazil and other Latin American markets.
Colorado will lose two Neighborhood Market stores by the end of January.
The closings will leave MS with 76 stores: 62 Supercenters, four discount stores, 10 Neighborhood Markets and seven Sam’s Clubs.
Among the 154 closures nationwide are the company’s 102 smallest format stores, Walmart Express, which had been in pilot since 2011.
Walmart now has 4,500 stores in the U.S.
Walmart stated the strategy is to feed the Express money into Walmart’s Supercenters and smaller-format Neighborhood Market stores. If a transfer is not possible, the company will provide 60 days of paid leave and severance for eligible employees.
For the entire list of store closings, .
Walmart also announced plans to open 200 to 240 stores worldwide during the coming year.
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The more than 300 store openings planned for 2017 includes 50 – 60 supercenters and 85 – 95 Neighborhood Markets in the U.S starting in February – the start of the company’s fiscal year.
