(Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, will eliminate about 11,200 jobs at its Sam’s Club membership warehouse clubs as it hires an outside company to demonstrate products.
About 10,000 demonstration employees, most part-time, will lose their jobs when Shopper Events takes over sampling, Sam’s Club Chief Executive Officer Brian Cornell told employees today in a memo. The company also is cutting about 1,200 membership recruiting jobs, or about two in each of the club’s U.S. stores.
Sam’s Club is working with Shopper Events to develop in- store demonstrations, such as food sampling, currently performed by Sam’s employees, Cornell said. The effort is aimed at improving demonstrations in the areas of food and beverages, personal wellness and electronics, according to the memo.
These cuts are separate from Walmart’s announcement on Jan. 11 that it will close 10 Sam’s Club locations and eliminate about 1,500 jobs, David Tovar, a spokesman for Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart, said today in a telephone interview. The chain, the second-largest membership warehouse club after Costco Wholesale Corp., employs about 110,000 people, Tovar said.
Shopper Events, based in Rogers, Arkansas, plans to hire roughly the same number of workers that Sam’s Club is firing, Cornell said in the memo. Employees can apply for Shopper Events jobs, he said.
Shopper Events already handles food-sample demonstrations inside Walmart’s U.S. stores, according to its Web site.
Walmart rose 2 cents to $52.94 on Jan. 21 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares dropped 4.7 percent last year, compared with a 23 percent advance in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
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