Walmart Hires 100,000 New Employees to Meet Surging Demand During Coronavirus

Big box retailer Walmart has hired 100,000 new temporary employees to meet the surging demand during the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Dan Bartlett, the company’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, many of Walmart’s new employees have come from hard-hit industries and are using the jobs to stay afloat “until their traditional jobs come back online.”

The new employees have been added on over the past three weeks to help keep shelves stocked and to fulfill online orders said Bartlett to CNBC’s Courtney Reagan.

The company had announced on March 19th that it would look to fill 150,000 positions.

“We’ll easily hit the 150,000,” he said. “We’ll do an assessment to see if we need to do more.”
Bartlett said most of the jobs are temporary, but about 10% to 15% are permanent.

“People are keeping their eye on the horizon to see when industry and when the economy will crank back up,” he said. “But in the meantime, they’re providing a critical service, and we welcome them with open arms.”

On Thursday, Bartlett said Walmart is still seeing sustained demand even for items such as toilet paper that people have been stockpiling. According to the executive, paper goods “are still under pressure.”

“All the do-it-yourself types of items like hair coloring and beard trimmers are selling quite well,” he added. “Sewing machines are flying off the shelf as well because a lot of people are selling and making their own masks at their house.”

“It’s not normal habits for people to shop that way, but we’re getting better every day,” he said. “Those types of lessons, which we’ll clearly share with policymakers and others, are the types of things I think all industries across different sectors are going to have to adopt themselves to give the confidence people need to come back to work.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and have not been compensated for this article.