Walmart to close hundreds of stores, layoff thousands
US retail giant Walmart, the world's largest company by revenue, will close hundreds of stores around the world and layoff thousands of employees.
The company announced Friday it will close 269 stores across the globe, including 154 in the US. In all, 16,000 employees will lose their jobs by the store closings, about 10,000 of whom are in the US.
Walmart is closing the stores to shift resources to Supercenters and smaller-format Neighborhood Market stores.
Walmart has more than 11,000 stores worldwide, including 4,655 stores in the US.
Internationally, Walmart is closing 115 stores, including 60 in Brazil. The remaining stores are primarily small, money-losing stores in other Latin American countries.
“Closing stores is never an easy decision, but it is necessary to keep the company strong and positioned for the future," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said in a statement.
Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, Walmart had a total revenue of $485 billion in 2014, according to the Fortune magazine. It is also the biggest private employer in the world with 2.2 million employees.
According to labor rights groups, many Walmart employees earn close to the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour.
A study in 2013 by Congress found employees at a single Wisconsin Walmart receive about $1 million per year in public assistance.
Millions of low-wage American workers in the retail and fast-food industry have protested in recent years for higher wages and the right to form labor unions.
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