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Wal-Mart Wage Hikes Backfire (Again) As Angry Employees Threaten To Quit
Last week, in "Economics 101: Wal-Mart Hikes Wages, Prepares To Fire 1000," we highlighted an internal memo circulated at Arkansas recruiting firm Cameron Smith & Associates.
The letter, which was obtained by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, advised employees to prepare for an expected wave of layoffs at WalMart’s home office in Bentonville. "Please remember, these people are our neighbors and friends," Cameron Smith tells his recruiters, "you have a skill that will be very much in need when this goes down."
The retail giant has received quite a bit of scrutiny this year (more than usual), after abruptly and simultaneously closing five geographically distinct stores in April. The company cited "plumbing issues", but many of the 2,500 or so affected employees weren’t buying it and neither was the chorus of Jade Helm 15 conspiracy theorists who suggested that the shuttered stores were being set up as internment camps as part of a wider government plot to institute martial law.
We had a different explanation for Wal-Mart’s "clogs and leaks": Earlier this year, WalMart became one of several corporate heavyweights to lift wages for its meagerly compensated workers, around 500,000 of which are now set to receive at least $9/hour and $10/hour by Q1 2016. Meanwhile, the move by the country’s largest retailer to pay a few extra pennies to its (basically) minimum wage employees comes at a cost to the company’s suppliers because when you operate on the thinnest of margins in order to be the "low price leader," someone has to pay for those wage hikes and you can’t pass along the costs to customers because many of your low-income patrons are operating from the same tax bracket as your low-paid employees. If you can’t extract enough pricing concessions from suppliers, well then, "creative" solutions must be found, so bring in the "plumbers."
But the across-the-board wage hikes instituted in April will cost WalMart around $1 billion this year alone, and because it looks like making up reasons to close entire stores is now off the table thanks to the nation’s newfound fascination with plumbing, it might come down to good old fashioned layoffs in Bentonville, where higher paid workers will ultimately pay the price for the minimum wage hike.
All of this is set against a larger debate about the pay floor.
Pressure has grown in America for employers to pay higher wages to workers who cannot earn enough to make ends meet. Soaring rents and crippling student debt aren’t doing anything to help the situation. Of course there are unintended consequences that go along with raising wages.
The standard criticism is that forcing employers to pay more will simply result in layoffs and/or a reduced propensity to hire, but as we saw with Dan Price and Gravity Payments, there are a whole lot of other things that can go wrong.
For instance, higher paid employees may not understand why everyone under them in the corporate structure suddenly makes more money and if people who are higher up on the corporate ladder don’t receive raises that keep the hierarchy proportional they may simply quit. Don’t look now, but that’s exactly what’s happening at Wal-Mart. Here’s Bloomberg:
When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. chief Doug McMillon announced plans to boost store workers’ minimum wage earlier this year, he said the move was intended to improve morale and retain employees.
Yet for some of the hundreds of thousands of workers getting no raise, the policy is having the opposite effect.
In interviews and in hundreds of comments on Facebook, Wal-Mart employees are calling the move unfair to senior workers who got no increase and now make the same or close to what newer, less experienced colleagues earn. New workers started making a minimum of $9 an hour in April and will get at least $10 an hour in February.
"It is pitting people against each other," said Charmaine Givens-Thomas, a 10-year Wal-Mart veteran. "It hurts morale when people feel like they aren’t being appreciated. I hear people every day talking about looking for other jobs and wanting to remove themselves from Wal-Mart and a job that will make them feel like that."
If Wal-Mart and other retailers don’t also adjust pay for veteran hourly workers, they could face rising dissent, said David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. Typically, when employers boost their base pay, they also give raises to those making within $1 to $2 of the new minimum to preserve a type of wage hierarchy and keep their longer-time workers happy, studies show.
"Companies want to preserve some type of internal wage ladder, so to do that they have to adjust wages of folks above the new minimum," Cooper said. If Wal-Mart doesn’t raise wages for these workers, "folks are going to leave or start complaining more vocally," he said.
Of course raising wages for those "around" the new minimum (i.e. preserving the wage hierarchy) will cost money - a lot of it. "Giving additional raises to employees already making close to the new minimum wage would cost Wal-Mart about $400 million," one researcher at UMass Amherst told Bloomberg.
So ultimately, raising the minimum for the lowest paid Wal-Mart workers to just $9/hour will end up costing around $1.5 billion if you include the additional raises the company will have to give to higher paid employees in order to retain their "talents" and avoid a mid-level management mutiny.
At the end of the day, it all comes back to one simple thing: this money has to come from somewhere, and since this is one instance where rising labor costs absolutely can't be passed on to customers, it will need to be extracted elsewhere. Many workers clearly understand this: "...workers also said they suspect their hours are being cut and annual raises reduced to cover the cost of the wage increase for newer workers."
Their suspicions would be correct. It's economics 101. It's also common sense. We'll give the last word to forklift operator Sal Fuentes:
"They give you some but they are taking away something else. It has always been like that."
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All those Illegals will pick up the slack...
i think that's been the plan, yes.
That and vote for stupid...
Which stupid? oh, nevermind.
Hey Gang, it's Scooby time!
Let's sing along, OK?
Scooby Dooby Doo where are you?
I'm shopping at my local Walmart.
And Scooby Dooby Doo what are you going to buy?
I'm buying some Scooby Snacks if I can afford the price increase, smaller box, and lower quality GMO'd additives that give me dog cancer.
Yea!
I can see it now...we're going to create a new class of people. The "Near Minimum Wage" worker will need representation to "Fight for 17!". They're now the downtrodden, repressed, under-appreciated ones.
There's always going to be a new distraction right around the corner.
Oh my gosh, there is "talk" about quitting. lmao. Don't talk about quitting, just freaking do it! Sheesh. It's only a dead end job paying $9 an hour!
I worked at a Target way, way back in the day and stopped showing up for work right before the busy Christmas season because I found a better paying job.
It's only retail. They get 50 applicants a day lining up for these crappy jobs. They aren't even worthy of a two weeks notice, because there's 20 people lining up to take your place.
I used one manager I was cool with as a reference from that job and that's all I needed. Seriously, that's all you need from a crap retail job starting out is one good reference. Once you get that, you pack up and walk out towards your next gig.
You don't work retail for the $9 nothing an hour, you work there to get a reference and move on. I can't believe anyone would waste 10 years of their life at these low level jobs. Seriously, grow up and move on. A 10-year walmart veteran? lol what a joke!
"It is pitting people against each other,
Cui bono?
Funny, I worked at Arby's for five years. I always showed up for work on time and rarely called in sick. When I did, I really was sick. My second year of college I got a good work study job and with some financial help from mr miffed, I was able to quit. Closing a restaurant was really hard for me to stay up until two AM with morning classes. I gave two weeks notice and the manager shook my hand and told me it was a pleasure to have worked with me.
6 years later, I was trying to get into an internship and needed 3 strong recommendations, preferably employment and a college professors. I contacted my old employer and he said he would be happy to. At every interview they went on and on what he had said about me. I got offers to 2 programs and was alternate to the 3 others. It was an honor at the time just to get one offer. I frankly never knew what he said about me.
Miffed
"Nice story bro, tell it again" Saw that on a Tee shirt and didn't know what it use it had... till now.
What far too many people fail to realize is that a job well done is a reward in and of itself...a source of personal pride and mark of character. When it is time to move on, do it with class. Even if your boss was an asshole, you don't have to be one.
Good guys DO NOT always finish last. It's amazing the lengths an impressed employer or manager will go to help a really good employee. Congratulations to you, Miffed, for many youngsters today would bail without notice on the grounds of entitlement.
I was working, back in the day at the company where Larry Ellison got his start. The Tech Boom kicked into gear and I got an offer with an outrageous increase. I explained what happened, gave my two weeks notice, asked if that was sufficient and was told basicly - adios, easy to find someone to fill your shoes. I gave the new job my start date. A week later, it was a whole new story - How could I leave? You'll never work in this valley again (yeah right.) Then meetings with my boss's bosses to straighten things out. I could see they were in trouble and tried to do the right thing. I said - Ok, I can give you two more weeks, but you need to pay me my new rate, plus expenses. I mean, why should I take the hit for their incompetence? Fine said the guy across the table, pen in hand - And how much will that be? I told him. He had a Hiroshima scale explosion, like - I've been in this business 20 years! I've never been held up and robbed like this in my life! Who do you think you are?! ... Then I got sent in to meet the big boss, a fellow Harp. He smiled, shook hands and said have a great life.
They lied and told the clients I came down with a sudden illness. Poor clients sent me flowers with wishes for a speedy recovery.
The best recommendation I ever received was when my old employer told my potential one I 'turned chicken shit into chicken salad'
"They give you some but they are taking away something else. It has always been like that."
....are you trying to tell me WalMart doesn't get to print money like the Bankers/FED!!"
I wouldn't mind being a Walmart Greeter for a real short day.........
"Hi there you lazy fat ass in the power cart. Welcome to Walmart!"
Fat lady: I'm telling the manager.
One day greeter: I own this store and we don't allow fat pigs, so please leave.
So new hires got a wage raise, and the veterans got nothing. What could go wrong?
Oh what I would give to see an America sans Wal-Mart and the Federal Reserve...
I still remember the first Wal-mart in my area. It was so much better than K-mart I was pleased. About a year later K-mart closed down. Wal-mart is still an improvement over k-mart even though a lack of competition has had an effect. An America without Wal-mart would not necessarily be any better. Without the Fed we would all be much better off. Trying to make a tie between a retail corporation like Wal-mart which has customers that have a choice and a government backed corporation that we are forced to use is disingenous.
Wait just a sec!
I read Walmart just hired 4,295 new employees.
Oh, wait a sec ... that's in China.
But customers do not have a choice. You said it yourself. K-mart closed. There is no competition.
Walmart and all other mega-chain stores can treat their employees however they want to, because the owners are remote, and do not have to face these people at church, little league, kid's school, etc. Moreover, profits that the business creates are whisked away to Arkansas / Shareholders. There are far fewer "Town Fathers" and civic leaders (aka local merchants and business owners) investing in their communities. No one makes or sells anything locally. No one has any money. Look at the former "downtown(s)" near any Walmart. Most of these towns are shit, getting shittier. Some were before Walmart ever got there, but it is this model that has played a large part in the gutting of "Main Street".
Comparatively speaking, Walmart treats their employees like gold. I know some of you are old enough to remember department stores in a indoor shopping mall before the big boxes existed.
The manager was always some dorky old man with half glasses on his nose, always nitpicking your every interaction with customers. No matter what you said or did, it was wrong, and he should "fire you on the spot".
Today at Walmart, the employees show up drunk, not groomed, and tatted up, and their managers are grateful that they even showed up at all. They don't deal with customers. their reply to everything is "I don't know". The product is tossed around, if it's even stocked at all in its proper spot. Walmart pay $9 an hour, and get only $9 an hour's worth of success.
As for nostalgia, I don't miss the old department stores one bit. In 20 years, Walmart Supercenter will be nostalgia, because brick and mortar stores will be replaced with Amazon type formats.
Yeah, well I remember those old department stores, too, and worked for 2 of them all through college. The ones I worked for gave me a lot of opportunity and flexibility, and they had some truly great training programs that provided sales techniques, product knowledge, and management development that I I still use almost 50 years later. It wasn't a place to get rich, but it did pay above minimum wage and offered opportunity to advance with integrity. The joke was that in lieu of a raise if you did a good job, you would be given a new department to manage. By the time I graduated from school, I was a division manager with almost 40 people reporting to me.
Of course, both were family owned businesses. One was a 5 store chain, and it bit the dust about 15 years ago. The other was a 400 store chain in the South, but it was a very de-centralized chain. It is still here, with fewer doors, complete centralization, and now has "professional" management. They made it through 3 generations of being run by family, but the 4th one is done with it. The training programs have suffered greatly, the employee turnover rate is awful, and the shopping experience is far inferior. Poorly staffed departments with 'associates' who are poorly trained and unmotivated.
I would avoid working for today's retail chains like the plague. Management has become mostly a bunch of self-important twits with their resumes in their desk drawer and a head hunter's phone number on speed dial. The burnout rate for lower level staffers is horrendous, and hardly anyone is happy or proud in their job.
In the late 80's WalMart's arrival as a shopper's choice was amazing. Of course, so much has changed since then, and WMT is just apparently another manifestation of the symptomatic decline.
For years we grocery shopped at WMT within the DFW area, mostly because the adjacent grocery stores weren't that competitive. Upon moving to rural WNC, we shopped at WMT, but noticed the customers were mostly poor looking (EBT?) and the store staff reflected the behaviors of the customers. The store is a bit seedy, with much less variety on the shelves. It frankly is depressing, and we've moved to a outlet store that provides opportunistic grocery buys and a regional grocery chain (Ingles) with higher prices, but superior variety, and whose customers seems more affluent, but whose attention to personal appearance is demonstrably better. I think a person can be poor and not look like they're destitute. I wear discount jeans and a discount polo shirt, and don't look dirty and uncaring. Maybe it's cultural, I don't know.
I think a person can be poor and not look like they're destitute. I wear discount jeans and a discount polo shirt, and don't look dirty and uncaring. Maybe it's cultural, I don't know.
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what fing shitty comment,what part of destitue don't you understand?
discount jeans and a polo shirt - that is destitute, like your in the club?
dress like that and some one's gonna take your lunch money
Upon moving to rural WNC, we shopped at WMT, but noticed the customers were mostly poor looking (EBT?)
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And this is bad in and of itself? heh A terrible way to perceive the world, not uncommon, but usually those who think like this possess enough decorum to cloak their vanity.
It frankly is depressing, and we've moved to a outlet store... whose customers seems more affluent, but whose attention to personal appearance is demonstrably better.
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It's not a fashion contest you twisted fuck, but if it was...
I wear discount jeans and a discount polo shirt, and don't look dirty and uncaring.
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...you lose Hank Hill.
Then you don't understand what the whole purpose of Walmart was/is.
Right? Wage Compression is almost always followed by Wage Expansion, don't they have some smart MBA's there? Hell, I live right around the corner and can figure this shit out.
It's way cheaper to bring in illegals then pay worker serfs enough to have.to raise domestic kids to be the next generation of stiffs. No gov skools costs for illegals. Besides true education is not needed not wanted. It only creates problems, and disatisfation. Further, illegals are and should be humble. That's double plus good in America, Inc.
Lastly if you a are an adult and can only, accept only, are satisfied with and stick around for 10$/hr.....you're a turnip, no blue vest for you!
What is this Bull$shit analysis?
The $1.5 billion can come from Wal-Mart's Annual Net Income of $16 Billion USD.
Since when is profit sacrosanct that it cannot be reduced to increase the pay of workers?
$15-$17 USD per hour for ALL the workers at a low end establishment like Wal-mart AND $14.5 Billion dollars left in profit per year for the leeches at the top.... how is this bad for the 99.9%?
Good luck to you.
"I hear people every day talking about looking for other jobs.."
Good luck with that. Sorry.
We will see a flood of former $10.50 an hour Walmart employees out on the street looking for jobs.
@taketheredpill
If they "talk" about quitting, they will "talk" about looking for work. Then they will "talk" about showing up for an interview, but then again, one can't get an interview, if they only "talk" about dropping off applications and/or resumes in order to get an interview in the first place.
They made $16 billion in profit last year. My calculations, if accurate would indicate that they would still be quite profitable after giving a few more table scraps to the rabble. What's this shit about not "affording" the pay raise. Fuck all of you fucking paper shuffling assholes who never worked a real job! And yes, stocking shelves at Walmart is more of a real job than hustling stocks and bonds.
What about those of us who worked retail, but left it for finance?
You mean became a part of the problem?
Walmart ranked second from bottom out of 68 American supermarkets surveyed. Is it any surprise that it is failing?
Walmart ranks second worst in survey of supermarkets where Americans like to buy groceries... while Wegmans takes first placehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3025259/Walmart-ranks-second-wor...
I'm in Wegman's territory, they are top notch, they are also privately held so they aren't required to do dumb things to keep a stock price elevated
Wegman's and Costco pay a living wage. And remarkably, they have a stable, knowledgable workforce who excel at their jobs. WHOODA THUNKIT?
They sell groceries now, too? That sounds like an awful idea putting that much food directly in front of their typically "big boned" customers.
They could turn things around if they started selling guns again.
At least they still sell ammo at the Brenham, Texas store.
Are the Walmart workers working 11% harder now? Not from what I can see by looking at empty unstocked spaces on the shelves.
No kidding. I have rarely been to a nice Walmart where it looked like their employees actually cared either about their job, about their store/company, or about the customer. In MN, we have a huge Somali population because of our generous welfare benefits and organizations that recruit Somalis in Somalia to come to MN (and other states, too). Many of the women end up working in Walmart and don't speak English, and don't do any actual work. So basically if you go there in the cities, you are on your own and the stores often look like disasters. Not only is it ridiculous to provide these people welfare benefits for coming here poor and with no skills, but Walmart is clearly paying these workers too much. I don't like going there because it's a bad customer experience. Sometimes I will go just to find a product I can't find elsewhere or elsewhere anywhere near as cheaply, but that is it. Perhaps they need to hire fewer, better, more productive people for more money, rather than useless people for less.
Be good if they didn't hires the ones that poop on the floor too.
I know its shocking to people in the PC crowd that an immigrant who has never had plumbing until they come here, might misuse a public bathroom.
What? Was WalMart their first stop? Was there a toilet on the plane or boat that brought them here?
No outhouses on the rio grande
No, its shocking to any sane person to find that the beaner ahead of you threw his shit filled toilet paper on the floor.
I wonder what the cut in the number of SKU's they've had there. years ago they'd have PALLETS of stuff in the back aisle. now there are fewer and much more empty shelves and NO PALLETS.
The theory is that they made the people who knew the sourcing system redundant as the accountants though they could do it. Their sourcing system is thoroughly messed... and the underlying IT is stressed from lack of new infrastructure investment. What once may have worked is so strung out that it can't cope.
Bingo.....the never changing problems of anything that becomes too big to properly manage.
I don't go to Wal-Mart myself except when I have to refill my 5g water bottles as they are by far the closest store to me that has a water refill station thing. I hate going in there though because there is no easy in-and-out, even for 3-4 bottles of water. Of the 30-something checkout aisles, only 3-4 have an "associate" on duty and they are almost always so slow that the line goes out into the main aisle to the point you can't get around it. And though there are two entrances, almost always the checkout lanes that actually have a person working them are all at one end of the store....there seems to be no management of any kind going on.
Any small issue like a coupon not scanning correctly or something not coming up with the right price automatically creates a look of panic and "what do I do??" on most of the checkout person's faces so what should be a 10 minute stop almost always takes me a half hour. Still holding out hope that my regular grocery store gets a water refill station so I can do all my shopping with one stop and keep my business as local as possible.
Most Walmarts stay open late, why not go for yer refills during dinner hours?
The problem with the long lines and no associates is frustrating. If I don't see reasonable lines, several times I have just parked my shopping cart off to the side and left the store. That contributes to the mess, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let them abuse my time because they are too cheap to hire a few more people.
If you are at Walmart you are likely stuck forever college degree or not. I would say 90% will be in retail for their whole life unless a reset happens.
If a reset happens, they won't be working at Walmart because there won't be shoppers. Then they will be desperate and angry like the rest of the welfare population who no longer get their government check or have (maybe) their low-skilled, low-paying job.
I notice the Walmart near me has been pretty quiet recently. At night things pick up a little with a handful of Indians, Pakis and blacks coming out to shop. Hard to say how they stay in business. It's kinda creepy when not even the Mexicans will go there anymore.
Might be the time of the month. Go there the first week of any month, after the EBT cards have been refilled. All the niggs, spics and wogs will be stinking up the place. Go there the last week of the month and the EBT cards are done -- empty stores.
Did I mention that I have access to a rather large chipper-shredder?
But that isn't MN, it's Fargo, ND.
I would love to see minimum wage be $15 an hour , that way we would see a complete breakdown and maybe people would wake up. I fear they wouldn't , and would then ask for $20 an hour. 'Merica, land of the tarded.
Everything is broken and nobody knows how to fix it. They started listening to academic 'experts' who've never even ran a lemonade stand, then added in executive incompetence and arrived in the now. Sam Walton is likely spinning in his grave at turbine speeds.....
Ross Perot warned them of that great sucking sound, and everyone laughed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rkgx1C_S6ls
The big difference between today and when Perot presciently warned us, is that corporations now don't even have to bother to 'offshore' jobs outside of the US - they just pay the pols to flood the country with the third-world.
Sure, in total it's actually far more expensive labor, but all of the extra expense (and then some) is borne by the taxpayer, who has no representation in Washington.
" no representation in Washington"++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I actually voted for Ross Perot.
Along with more than 20% of us and he didn't get 1 damn electoral vote, did he?
Ahh yes, a representative government of the people and for the people.
It was actually 19%, split almost equally between democraps republcants. The real interesting number, however, that came from exit polling is that 35% of voters said they would have voted for Perot IF they thought he could have won. If he had gotten just 25%of them, it would have been President Perot. The public was not sold on either Clinton or Bush in 1992.
Yep, me too.
That gives pause to another approach. Attach magnets around Sam, generate electricity then sell the power and offset the cost of the raises?
Sam died in 1992.... good luck with that.
What you don't "get" is Sam spinning in his grave! This alone generates much useable energy, more so than if he were generating copious amounts of methane.
I think "pitting employees against each other" is a good management trick. It toughens up the workers and makes them more like gladiators. (sarc)
Wal Mart is shit, their customers are shit, most of their employees are shit, the Waltons and management are shit. Wal Mart is a reflection of today's Amerika.
I have never given Wal Mart employees credit for being the sharpest of tacks but in comparison to the patrons I gave them the benefit of the doubt until...I had to go into one at 11:00 pm because every place else was closed. The employees on the night shift were as derelict as humanity gets. I wonder where they hole up during the day?
No shit.
They need to create robots to replace all these low wage people and see what they think then.
If you've been working at Wal-mart for a decade and are only making something like 11 or 12 bucks an hour then maybe you should think about getting a new job since it's obviosu you're not really moving up the ladder or at the very least quit trying to threaten the company about them losing your precious skills. You're easily replaceable.
where? suggestions please....
It's tough out there for sure.
It starts with your thoughts and you've started so thats a good thing.
Keep you head up and carry on.
I get the words in my head from this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1crYavhnv4
It Gets Me Down.
Try this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4zfaUnKbZ0
This actually happened to me. I was making $15.50/hour when a company bought my company. The acquiring company said it would review peoples wages, and raise them if needed. But all they did was raise new employees to start at $17/hour. Existing employees like me were stuck making $15.50. So i was making less than someone new, even though i had been there a couple years and worked hard. Eventually word got out and people were very pissed. One of the many reasons I ended up quiting.
How did that work out for you? Was unemployed better?
quote "Existing employees like me were stuck making $15.50. So i was making less than someone new, even though i had been there a couple years and worked hard."
lol, you "worked hard". That was your problem.
One of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes is "work harder on yourself, than you do on your job."
If new employees make more, why didn't you quit and come back the next day? That shows just how stupid you and your co-workers are. You should have gotten a pay cut just for that.
That is a horrible slice of real life in Amerika. I sure hope you jumped to something paying as well or a more satisfying position.
Higher wages equals less jobs.
Now, if they had bumped it to $70K across the board...
I hope the Waltons don't lose a dime, who can live on less than $50B these days?
Raising the pay of non-productive workers to the same level of pay of productive workers is one of the simplest demonstrations of socialism there is. There you go folks. Right in your face. And you voted for it.
.
I have never worked for an employer who passed out compliments. Doing a good job is expected.
I agree, I take it as pandering to management dogma when I am thanked profusely for simply doing my job. My standard reply is, don't worry, I'm getting paid.
Being thanked "profusely" for doing your job is pandering. On the other hand, praise and notation of a job very well done is motivating to most.
Bonuses help, too.
Ah, the joys of price fixing. Due to the arbitrary nature, it always fails. Which of course calls for more price fixing. Calling Dr. Krugman, we need the price of labor re-fixed.
Cue the paper labor market.
1.5B is peanuts. Just do it.
Still not understanding why people shop there. Garbage at low prices, whoopie. Its a plantation model business, emplyees barely paid and the owners filthy rich. Not to mention the squeeze on suppliers, locally owned business losses, and instead of health care they put the bees on MediCare.
I shop at both Wal Mart and Sam's Club. Both have numerous self-check out lanes. I find it quicker and easier to check myself out. The big slowdown is if the person in front of you checking out is clueless. In 10 years, there won't be any front end help. With scanning technology and RFID technology becoming more cost effective, and shoppers becoming more accustomed to self-checkout, those jobs are obsolete. Some will be eliminated, but some staffing will shift back onto the floor where it is lacking. Sad, but true.
Equality has a price...to those employees who earned their raises, you just received a primer in socialist economics 101. I doubt most will make the connection.
I’m on Soc Sec and a small pension so I get s--- for raises. I would love a 30% increase so I could have a living wage! Or even a decent percentage on bonds (screw the FED) so I could get a reasonable fixed income.
I am amazed that living in a depression like this so many liberal SOB’s continue to scream for more money. Don’t they know there are 25 million unemployed waiting in the wings for their jobs?
I don’t buy fast food anymore – too expensive. I have the time so I go to Walmart or Costco to get decent prices on living essentials to survive.
Who buys crap at a brick and morter store anymore? I'd much rather shop on the internet than face the dregs of society at the local Walmart. Free shipping most of the time and on some sites, no sales tax either. The only time I go to a store is for groceries or Home Depot. The less I have to deal with humanity, the better.
Your "free shipping" is going to disapear.
Amazon LOST $3.3 BILLION on their shipping costs in 2013(?) and they are still losing billions a year on shipping. How long is that sustainable?
Depends on the amount of the kickbacks.
"how long is that sustainable?" forever... given their market cap. Investors give Amazon no incentive to earn a profit.
Thinking at WM:
"Employees angry, hmmm...
Employees want wage increases, hmmm...
Employees threatening to quit, hmmm...
I know! I'll tell Congress that our vacancies are 'jobs Americans don't want to do,' and then perhaps they will allow me to hire moar foreign workers. That's it!"
/sarc
I have not been to a WMT in a long time. I do go to COST though.
But wait, WalMart has a solution to this problem! It is highly noticeable up in Canada, so is it also true in the US, where larger packages of the same good are priced at more than two times the half-size or smaller sized package? For example, sometimes one item will be $3.98 and the larger two-pack is retailing for $8.47; or a package of 16 is, let's say, $2.98 and the 32 item sized package is $6.46 or so. Those who buy the "larger", "Jumbo", or "convenience" pack are paying MORE than twice as much for...well...twice as much. It also works with other packages where for about the same price or less you might get two smaller packages containing 1-200 more grams of "stuff" than is in the larger package.
I call it "pricing for dummies"... but WalMart and perhaps other big box retailers are counting on those years of innumeracy training children got in school for the last 40 years to make them incapable of running the maths in their heads, as it were, so they buy the larger size under the marketed training that says bigger is cheaper... when it isn't necessarily so anymore.
It may not look like big differences, but with WalMart's volumes, one wonders how much of this is used to pad an already padded bottom line where thinning out at the district manager level and vice-president level went on last year. Times are tough, eh?
Is this happening in the US, UK and other markets, as well?
The Wal-Mart where I live has two sizes of InnovAsian General Tsos Chicken. One and Two pound boxes. The 1# is priced 4.96 while the 2# is 8.97 so the math still works in favor of the larger box. The approx. fifty cents adds up gradually since I regularly buy this product. I use half of the chicken pieces with a single sauce packet (the 2# contains 2) and refreeze the remainder. Works great!
Now there are some price spikes happening on certain commodities. Milk was a really good example months ago. There were three stores in three states I visited where the milk was mispriced. I took pics of their dairy milk sign and the cashiers granted me discounts when I brought up these errors. All three of these stores have corrected their milk when the gallon price collapsed to 2.98/gal for the same brand. Nevertheless, you bring up an excellent point that most people could truly care less about the price or checking it, in part because the guvmint' pays da' bills!
All hail the race to the bottom. People in the elties can always rationalize the race to the bottom. We tax payers pay huge amounts in health care and food stamps to WalMarts employees. That should be a cost of doing business, but WalMart pushed that onto tax payers. And then some elites can always make a case that that is okay and the race to lower and lower wages is always good, as the unseen hand makes everything good.
Fuck WalMart.
Corporations supported the gov't take over of health care cause the fascist partnership is just an interim step to a national health care service, and it will take health care off corporate labor costs.
Good luck to those folks in Bentonville threatening to quit.
Where are you going to find another job there? With a decent wage?
Walmart can ride it out with a few well publicized layoffs there.
There ARE other jobs with decent wages in NW AR due to the additional services surrounding Wal-Mart, but this long-term WMT shareholder, native Arkansan and former resident of near that region has to agree it won't be so easy, even with UA in the backyard.
Amazon is going to show Walmart how its done.
I just typed "How much did the waltons make" into google and this was at the very top of the thousands of search hits returned ... "The six Waltons on Forbes' list of world billionaires have a net worth of $148.8 billion. This fiscal year three Waltons—Rob, Jim, and Alice (and the various entities that they control)—will receive an estimated $3.16 billion in Walmart dividends from their majority stake in the company."
"At the end of the day, it all comes back to one simple thing: this money has to come from somewhere, and since this is one instance where rising labor costs absolutely can't be passed on to customers, it will need to be extracted elsewhere.
Many workers clearly understand this: "...workers also said they suspect their hours are being cut and annual raises reduced to cover the cost of the wage increase for newer workers."
Their suspicions would be correct. It's economics 101. It's also common sense. We'll give the last word to forklift operator Sal Fuentes:
"They give you some but they are taking away something else. It has always been like that."
Of course... Rob, Jim, and Alice couldn't possibly think of taking a bit of a cut themselves, because they would literally starve to death.
They own most of the company so ... if you do not like it do not shop there. If you do not like the wage, find one that pays more. F##k this crap about everyone is equal.
I don't work for Walmart, asshole. I implement Enterprise Resource Planning systems.
And I don't shop there either - because if I did I might meet somebody like you.
" someone has to pay for those wage hikes and you can’t pass along the costs to customers because many of your low-income patrons are operating from the same tax bracket as your low-paid employees. If you can’t extract enough pricing concessions from suppliers, well then, "creative" solutions must be found, so bring in the "plumbers."
Well, that may have been the WAY it was.WalMart is NOT the low price leader they claim to be.
I shop at three locations other than WalMart, that are cheaper(on the same poducts routinely), and WalMart has a few lost leaders,to suck you in.If you do your homework,it's easy to find deals better than WalMart.(an example) 2 12pks Coke products, a DOLLAR cheaper for 2-12 packs at RACETRACK!!.Every day.( I find this on nearly ALL the items they have that we use,throughout WalMart.)
When Tom Thumb/Kroger/Market Steet, and the RaceTrack gas stations are same, or less expensive,you have been led to believe WalMart is lower on everything.
Not true at all.
Plus, the bums advertise one price, and when they give it to you from their Deli/Meat/Cheese sections.(I have been told a couple of times (this year) THAT's yesterdays special price,it just hasn't been changed yet.
(Uh dude, your price say $x.xx per #,so THAT is the price you are going to charge me.NOPE..................won't do it.
Walmart price matches so you are wrong and you have no point. All you have to do is tell the cashier, for example, is milk is $1.98 at Kroger this week, and they just key it in. They don't even bother asking for proof anymore with competitor's ads. The $9 an hour cashiers just want to get you out the door.
Thanks for the tip.
I'm gonna try it when I buy my 2$ Marie Caledar's TeeVee dinners,
Those things are cheap and tasty!
WM price matches to the local competiton. If you are 15 miles for the competiton then it's a no go.
Amazon delivers
We're all equal, some are just more equal than others.
Nothing more redneck amerikan than becoming unhappy by learning someone else is doing well.
no my friend, nothing more Soviet and even today, Russian in mentality. That is the legacy of Socialism/Communism. You are stupid by a factor of 3.
The lower class gets a bump in wages that turns out to be insignificant, and still get to keep their added welfare benefits, EIC, reduced utility bills, etc.
Every single item you buy will jump at least 10% in cost, fast food meals will go to $9 for a crap hamburger. Since entitlements will continue to sap budgets, taxes will continue to rise (which the lower class don't pay) and the middle class will continue to find themselves nickled and dimed out of existence.
My wage has not increased, but water and electricity have doubled in one year. Even though oil has been cut in half, gasoline and heating oil have only gone down by 20%. Not even coming close to making up for the massive increase in other utility bills.
The goal has been to eliminate the middle class and have the lower class beg for government support. To create the Eastern European Socialist model in America.
A worthless, brainless, unskilled population is perfect for assigned government bureaucracy. Citizen 867041292 please report to factory 7305 to complete your daily quota of 428 units. Six boxes of meal ration 686 will be delivered upon completion. The NWO thanks you for your participation.
You can't please everyone all the time... or any of the time. The minimum wage will lift all boats eventually, it always has.
Yes but inflation is < 2%