It's been a year-long process, leaving almost 14,000 Walmart and Sam's Club employees without a job, but some say in this economy, cuts like this are necessary.
Bentonville Resident Lois Hicks says her family has been deeply hurt by the cuts. "My daughter in law was working up in St. Joseph for Sam's Club and she was in the lay off that was last week."
Walmart officials say almost 800 home office workers lost their jobs last February. Another 13,700 people were laid off from Sam's Warehouses across the country, in January 2010, including those from the 10 Sam's Club close-downs, also last month.
Now, 300 more local jobs are on the chopping block at the corporate level. In all, it's almost 14,000 Walmart workers now unemployed. U of A Economist Kathy Deck puts it like this:"it hits people straight in the chest."
Yet she says the layoffs could help keep Walmart afloat in a sour economy. "Walmart is a beacon of hope, and continues to be one of the success stories in this recession."
But for families caught in the cuts, it's not a success story. Bentonville Chamber of Commerce President Ed Clifford: "300 don't have a job today that did have a job last week. It affects the psyche a little bit."
For people like Hicks, it means more bad news on the horizon. "I have several people that work for the Home Office and as managers and assistant managers, and it's making a lot of them nervous."
But experts like Deck say these layoffs could help keep Walmart, and the local economy, stronger, overall. "As consumers are still going to be very, very thrifty, keep their wallets close to their chests, I guess, try to be very cautious about their spending into the future, Walmart has to make sure that it's positioned its resources appropriately."
Local economists hope the layoffs will bring new businesses into Northwest Arkansas, looking to hire from a Walmart talent pool.
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