Why Walmart Is Laying Off Almost 1,500 Employees - Tasting Table

Nobody expects neighborhood Walmart stores to suddenly disappear. But the Walmart Global Tech department has big projects in mind, ones that have now entered the fast track, including a major shift in the Atlanta workforce. According to Reuters and confirmed by Walmart, 1,458 people employed at the company's Fulton Parkway e-commerce fulfillment center in Atlanta will lose their jobs in the coming weeks and months. Workers received notification at the end of August, and Retail Dive notes that the layoffs will be completed by Dec.2, 2022.

The reduction of employees at the fulfillment center has nothing to do with a decrease in online orders – quite the opposite. Walmart showed a 500% increase in its fulfillment services in 2021, culminating in more than 200 million items available for online purchasing, according to Forbes. The layoffs in Atlanta instead come with plans to convert the existing center into a support hub for the Walmart Fulfilment Services business, a model that relies heavily on marketplace sellers, per a company statement to Reuters.

An important component of the changing Atlanta workforce revolves around Walmart's purchase of robotics company Alert Innovations. The Takeout states that custom bots will efficiently facilitate Walmart customer orders spanning several temperature zones. Retail Dive identifies Alert Innovations as an e-commerce grocery automation firm, and further notes Walmart's recent Symbiotic agreement to deploy end-to-end automation at all regional distribution centers, likely leading to further shifts in the employee workforce.

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