COMPANY CLAIMS IT WILL REACH ITS PROMISED JOB CREATION TOTALS
Earlier this week we ran an item on America’s “Retail-pocalypse” which referenced a recent announcement from global retail giant Walmart. According to the Bentonville, Arkansas-based corporation – it is closing 269 stores around the world (including 154 locations in the United States).
We wondered: Isn’t Walmart supposed to be in the ongoing process of creating 4,000 new jobs in South Carolina?
Yes. Yes they are.
So … how does this announcement square with its job creation commitments to the Palmetto State? And more importantly, what is the status of the company’s 2011 announcement that promised all those jobs?
According to Walmart, three South Carolina-based stores – one in Winnsboro, one in Pacolet and one in Gray Court – will be closed in connection with the recent announcement. However, the company says it has seven stores slated to open in South Carolina this year – five smaller stores and a pair of “Supercenters.”
How will those closings and openings impact the new job totals?
“We’ve had a strong internal transfer rate for the associates effected by the store closures, so that should not be a headwind in reaching our number,” company spokesman Phillip Keene told us.
According to Keene, as of December 2015 the company had created 3,300 new jobs in the Palmetto State since its May 2011 announcement – 700 jobs shy of its estimate.
“We should meet our stated 4,000 job figure,” Keene said.
Interesting …
Obviously a job at Walmart isn’t going to enable the person who holds it to make ends meet – although as this website has repeatedly stated, that doesn’t mean the minimum wage ought to be raised. Instead, it means government should stop suffocating the economy so that these positions aren’t going to people who otherwise might be pursuing a career in the manufacture of the various products being sold there.
Oh well … until government gets the hell out of the way (and pulls the plug on rampant crony capitalism), that’s never going to happen. Empowering the consumer economy means putting more money in people’s pockets – not the CEO of Boeing’s pockets.
In the meantime: Do we believe Walmart will reach its goal in this time of economic uncertainty? Eh. We’ll have to wait and see …
27 comments
Here Will, let me help you edit a little. “…Earlier this week we ran an item on America’s “Retail-pocalypse” which” attempted to make “a tempest in a teapot” or “a mountain out of a mole hill” or “much ado about about nothing” (chose your favorite idiom).
While, I don’t always agree with the toy soldier, in this instance he is absolutely correct. Will, isn’t it better to have 2500 jobs than no jobs resulting in more claims for unemployment, SNAP and other similar types of benefits. Job creation is not an exact science as there are multiple variables, many unforseen/unanticipated.
This article is just another example of the piss poor, lazy “journalism” that has become a staple of fitsnews and its founding (floundering) editor.
Walmart kills small businesses and many of the Walmart employees will probably be drawing SNAP, Medicaid and other welfare programs anyways. It isn’t just a matter of 2,500 people employed or not employed.
What proof do you have that WalMart “kills small businesses”? That argument has been since WalMart’s inception without any empirical evidence to support it. Just like your comment that many WalMart employees will probably be collecting SNAP, Medicaid, etc., it is nothing more than a repeated unfounded, irrational statement.
The point of the article was that WalMart has failed to deliver on its promise/stated goal creating 4000 jobs in SC. Will attacks the company for not having reached that threshold while ignoring the fact that it has created 3300 jobs. It’s far better to have 3300 actual jobs than no jobs at all.
Before I start, I want to say I like most of your comment.
“Will attacks the company for not having reached that threshold while ignoring the fact that it has created 3300 jobs. It’s far better to have 3300 actual jobs than no jobs at all.”
The running theme though I would suggest is that the Commerce Department & Haley have been using tax incentives selectively(crony capitalism) instead of across the board as a method of drawing in large companies while keeping such incentives out of the hands of existing(and mostly small) business here in SC with the understanding that said large corporation hit certain metrics….none of which appear to be routinely followed up on or enforced.
Well said!!!!!
Just ask the residents of Oriental, NC whether Walmart “kills small businesses”. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/05/what-happens-to-a-tiny-town-when-walmart-disappears/
Dad, you collect SNAP and Medicaid, you pathetic douchbag pedophile. At least those WalMart employees are trying to earn a living unlike your sick, twisted stupid ass.
By the way, Pederasty is not considered a disability!
LMAO!
” Amazon et al are making “brick and mortar storefronts” less and less significant”
One interesting tidbit though, Amazon is opening up some brick and mortar bookstores it just recently announced.
I don’t think we’ll see the complete annihilation of brick & mortar any time soon, if it all.(not that you’re saying that)
I sure hope not. I admit that most of the books I buy these days are digital copies from Amazon, but there is absolutely nothing I love better than spending an afternoon in a bookstore.
“nothing better”, Mama? Are ya’ positive about that?
What ya’ have in mind there Shifty?
just curious if Mama is a real Mama — like to get my name buzzing around in her head, you know, just in case (sigh)
When reading anything of length I prefer hard copy as well.
As of Jan. I Amazon is charging state sales tax. That might help a little but ,with the internet, competitive shopping is now part of almost every purchase. The brick and mortar stores are at a competitive disadvantage from the get go. The days of loyalty to a store , company or much of anything else is gone. Actually not a good thing but a fact of life.
Thing is, they’ze creatin’ new government camps at them Wal Marts – to start martial law. I know, I seen it on U-Tube.
That’s why we need to keep every Walmart we can open, to deny the government access to their facilities.
I still keep hearin’ them booms. Booms. Booms. And Obama’s planning to detonate a nuclear bomb in Charleston Harbor.
Every local community that has raised the minimum wage has seen no decline in jobs, and in fact has experienced economic growth. The minimum wage should at least be returned on an inflation adjusted basis to where it was in the 1960s.
Of course that belief makes me Joseph Stalin, ready to kill millions as soon as I can.
Of course it makes you Stalin, just like an old Jewish liberal who had family die in the Holocaust is literally Hitler because he supports Medicare for all.
They’ll have to compete with e-commerce. Like any company, if you don’t apply proper marketing and PR, the ship will sink.
People don’t go crazy on Black Friday like they used to. They can get what they need on Amazon a lot cheaper without having to deal with the mouth-breathers at Wallmart.
Can’t wait until the only things getting trampled after Thanksgiving are web servers.
only at Walmart can they replace real live human cashiers with a self scan register, and improve customer service.
Today’s winner……….
No shit, Rocky!!!! That one goes into competition for comment of the quarter, maybe the year!
Also see-Amazon,taxes,SC