On March 20, Walmart reported its intent to hire 150,000 employees to deal with fast-rising demand from the COVID-19 pandemic. Three weeks later, the retail giant is reportedly more than two-thirds of the way to that goal. Walmart eventually could hire more than 150,000 new employees, according to Dan Bartlett, EVP of Corporate Affairs at Walmart.
“We’ll easily hit 150,000,” Bartlett told CNBC. “We’ll do an assessment to see if we need to do more.”
While most of the new jobs are temporary, approximately 10% to 15% are permanent, and many of the new recruits have come from employees of hard-hit industries seeking to stay afloat until their traditional jobs return, Bartlett noted.
Some essential retailers, including Dollar Tree, Costco and Target, saw declines in sales following the period of stock-up purchases in early March, but Walmart appears to be bucking this trend. However, government mandates restricting the amount of in-store traffic and the expansion of stay-at-home orders are likely to affect all essential retailers.
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Walmart is still seeing sustained demand, according to Bartlett, although he did not provide specific sales data. Shoppers are buying not just essentials like toilet paper but also pandemic-specific products: “All the do-it-yourself types of items like hair coloring and beard trimmers are selling quite well,” he noted. “Sewing machines are flying off the shelves as well because a lot of people are selling and making their own masks at their houses.”
