Wal-Mart to hire vets, buy American

In this photo from Sep­tem­ber 2011, Wal-Mart employ­ees Jon Chris­tians and Lori Har­ris take job appli­ca­tions and answers ques­tions dur­ing a job fair at the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois Spring­field cam­pus in Spring­field, Ill. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer and nation’s largest pri­vate employer, said Tues­day it is mak­ing a pledge to boost its sourc­ing from domes­tic sup­pli­ers and hire more than 100,000 vet­er­ans. The plans were to be announced as part of an address by Bill Simon, pres­i­dent and CEO of Wal-Mart’s U.S. busi­ness, at an annual retail indus­try con­ven­tion in New York. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Seth Perlman)

ANNE D’INNOCENZIO

AP Retail Writer

NEW YORK — Why wait on Wash­ing­ton to fix the econ­omy when there’s Wal-Mart?

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer and the biggest pri­vate employer in the U.S. with 1.4 mil­lion work­ers here, said Tues­day that it is rolling out a three-part plan to help jump­start the slug­gish U.S. economy.

The plan includes hir­ing more than 100,000 vet­er­ans in the next five years, spend­ing $50 bil­lion to buy more American-made mer­chan­dise in the next 10 years and help­ing its part-time work­ers move into full-time posi­tions sooner.

The move comes as Wal-Mart attempts to bol­ster its rep­u­ta­tion, which has been hit in the past year by an alleged bribery scan­dal in Mex­ico and a deadly fire at a Bangladesh fac­tory that sup­plies clothes to the com­pany. Wal-Mart, which often is crit­i­cized for its low-paying jobs and buy­ing habits in the U.S., said it’s plan aims to high­light career oppor­tu­ni­ties in the retail indus­try, which sup­ports one in four jobs in the coun­try. The company’s plan could have an impact on the U.S. econ­omy: With $444 bil­lion in annual rev­enue, if Wal-Mart were a coun­try, it would rank among the largest economies in the world.

“We’ve devel­oped a national paral­y­sis that’s dri­ven by all of us wait­ing for some­one else to do some­thing,” Bill Simon, pres­i­dent and CEO of Wal-Mart’s U.S. busi­ness, said Tues­day at an annual retail indus­try con­ven­tion in New York. “The beauty of the pri­vate sec­tor is that we don’t have to win an elec­tion, con­vince Con­gress or pass a bill to do what we think is right. We can sim­ply move for­ward, doing what we know is right.”

At the cen­ter of Wal-Mart’s plan is a pledge to hire vet­er­ans, many of who have come home from Afghanistan and Iraq are had a par­tic­u­larly hard time find­ing jobs. The unem­ploy­ment rate for vet­er­ans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan stood at 10.8 per­cent in Decem­ber, com­pared with the over­all unem­ploy­ment rate of 7.8 percent.

Wal-Mart said it plans to hire every vet­eran who wants a job and has been hon­or­ably dis­charged in the first 12 months of active duty. The pro­gram, which will start on Memo­r­ial Day, will include jobs mostly in Wal-Mart’s stores or in its Sam’s Club loca­tions. Some will be at its head­quar­ters, based in Ben­tonville, Ark. or the company’s dis­tri­b­u­tion centers.

Dave Tovar, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said Wal-Mart hasn’t worked out the details but it will “match up the vet­er­ans’ expe­ri­ence and qual­i­fi­ca­tions.” Simon, who served in the Navy, said that vet­er­ans have “a record of per­for­mance under pressure.”

“They’re quick learn­ers, and they’re team play­ers. These are lead­ers with dis­ci­pline, train­ing, and a pas­sion for ser­vice. There is a seri­ous­ness and sense of pur­pose that the mil­i­tary instills, and we need it today more than ever,” he said.

Wal-Mart said First Lady Michelle Obama, who spear­headed a White House drive to encour­age busi­nesses to hire vet­er­ans, has expressed an inter­est through her team in work­ing with Wal-Mart and with the rest of the busi­ness com­mu­nity on this initiative.

In the next sev­eral weeks, Simon said the White House will meet with the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs, the Depart­ment of Defense and major U.S. employ­ers to encour­age busi­nesses to make com­mit­ments to train and employ American’s return­ing vet­er­ans. The first lady on Tues­day called Wal-Mart’s announce­ment “historic.”

“We all believe that no one who serves our coun­try should have to fight for a job once they return home,” she said in a state­ment. “Wal-Mart is set­ting a ground­break­ing exam­ple for the pri­vate sec­tor to follow.”

In addi­tion to hir­ing vet­er­ans, Wal-Mart said that it will spend $50 bil­lion to buy more prod­ucts made in the U.S. over the next 10 years. Accord­ing to data from Wal-Mart’s sup­pli­ers, items that are made, sourced or grown in the U.S. account for about two-thirds of the company’s spend­ing on prod­ucts for its U.S. business.

Wal-Mart said that it plans to focus on buy­ing more in areas such as sport­ing goods, fash­ion basics, stor­age prod­ucts, games and paper prod­ucts. The com­mit­ment comes as eco­nom­ics are chang­ing for mak­ing goods over­seas. Labor costs are ris­ing in Asia, while oil and trans­porta­tion costs are high and increas­ingly uncertain.

Simon, Wal-Mart’s CEO, said that a few of the company’s man­u­fac­tur­ers have told Wal-Mart that they have defined the “tip­ping points” at which man­u­fac­tur­ing abroad will no longer make sense for them. Simon cited one sup­plier called 1888 Mills, which made most of its tow­els over­seas, but had an under­uti­lized fac­tory in Grif­fin, Georgia.

Wal-Mart said it worked with the sup­plier on a cou­ple of inno­va­tions and now the U.S. fac­tory is hir­ing again. The tow­els made in the U.S. will be in 600 of its stores this spring, and another 600 stores in by the fall. The tow­els’ label will say “Made Here.”

The final piece of Wal-Mart’s plan is to help part-time Wal-Mart work­ers tran­si­tion into full-time employ­ment if they so desire. Simon said that about 75 per­cent of its store man­age­ment start as hourly asso­ciates, and their aver­age pay is $50,000 to $170,000 a year.

“There are some fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ings out there about retail jobs, and we need to do bet­ter at explain­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ties we offer,” he said.

Posted by AP News on Jan 15 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.