$WMT (Wall Street Journal) -- Walmart said Tuesday it would cut or relocate about 1,000 corporate workers as it looks to combine more of its global-technology and artificial-intelligence product teams, according to people familiar with the situation.
This past summer Walmart hired Daniel Danker, who was an Instacart executive, to fill a new role as head of global AI acceleration. Since then Danker and Walmart's head of global technology, Suresh Kumar, have reviewed their internal structures and decided to streamline some teams to operate more efficiently, the leaders said in a memo sent to staff Tuesday and viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
"In some cases, we've had different teams working on similar problems," they said in the memo. Affected staff can apply for open roles within the company, they said.
In recent years Walmart has continually trimmed some corporate staff as it consolidates units and asks workers to relocate to its main corporate hubs, often its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. Earlier this year Walmart planned 100 layoffs at its Hoboken, N.J., corporate offices, according to a layoff notice that Walmart filed in New Jersey to comply with state law there.
This time around, many of the affected staff have been asked to relocate to Walmart's Bentonville or Northern California offices, said the people familiar with the situation. Walmart is the country's largest private employer, with around 1.6 million U.S. employees, many hourly workers.
Many large companies, including Meta Platforms and https://t.co/SpqvHNUxpK, have announced significant layoffs in recent months, often related to the need to invest heavily in artificial intelligence or planning for a time when more work is handled by AI. Walmart's changes are related to organizational structure and alignment, not handing over more tasks to artificial intelligence, said a spokeswoman for the company.
Walmart has been on a sales-growth streak for years. Now it is investing heavily in technology, automation and AI efforts, while working to keep profits growing. It has worked to expand its profits beyond the sales of goods through new businesses such as advertising and by reducing expenses, said executives during its earnings presentation earlier this year.
Walmart in recent months combined its global-technology platforms across various units such as its warehouse chain, Sam's Club, Walmart and its international business. "We believe this will result in our growth continuing to come at a much lower marginal cost than what it has historically," Walmart Chief Executive John Furner said during its earnings presentation.
Write to Sarah Nassauer at Sarah.Nassauer@wsj.com
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