How Many Jobs Has Wal-Mart Created Over The Last 5 Years?

More Hiring On The Anvil

Wal-Mart announced Tuesday plans to add 34,000 jobs in 2017, including 10,000 retail jobs, in the United States as part of its multi-billion dollar investment in the country.

In mid-2016, the company said it was committed to source an additional $250 billion in products, made, assembled or grown in the United States, supporting American jobs by 2023. The company had estimated then 1 million new jobs would be created through this initiative, 250,000 direct manufacturing jobs and 750,000 support and services jobs.

Benzinga investigated the hirings and firings by the company in the past five years by looking at the company's filings.

Associate Count

In fiscal year 2016 ending January 2016 or for the year 2015, the company and subsidiaries employed 1.5 million associates in the United States. The number of associates in the United States was at 1.4 million at the end of fiscal year 2015, which puts the net addition in the year 2014 at 100,000 jobs. The number of associates at the end of 2013 was 1.4 million, suggesting net addition of zero. In 2012, the associates' number was at 1.3 million, which was a decrease from 1.4 million in 2011.

Wal-Mart Also Shed Jobs

In September 2016, the company announced the elimination of accounting and invoicing jobs at about 500 locations in the Western United States, with company hinting it would let go of two or three personnel in each locations. Prior to that in the same year, the retail giant trimmed about 500 jobs at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Average associate wage was $10 per hour in 2016, up from $9 in 2015 and $7.25 in 2014.

Meanwhile, research done by the Economic Policy Institute in 2015 showed Chinese imports purchased by Wal-Mart cost the United States 400,000 jobs between 2001 and 2015, as it imported Chinese goods valued at about $49 billion.

Thus, we see that Wal-Mart is one of the biggest hirers of manpower in the United States. To understand its gravity as an employer, one only has to look at the employable population. The retail giant hires roughly 1 percent of the total employable population. This represents the retail jobs alone. In addition to the retail jobs, the company also employs people in support and services function.