Wal-Mart is hiring 22,000 workers across the country, including 1,000 or more workers in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia,” according to a CNN story.
The hirings are significant in lieu of our depressing unemployment rate, which economists predict will rise to 9.2 percent after the economy lost 520,000 jobs last month. That’s a 25-year high!
I’m very conflicted about Wal-Mart. I don’t like to feature their deals on BargainBabe.com because of their checkered past. But I know for many people shopping at Wal-Mart is a way to make ends meet. I “vote” with my dollars and let others do the same. To each their own, right?
Because of the recession, however, I’m wondering if people are applying for and taking jobs they wouldn’t otherwise consider.
[poll id=”26″]
Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price.
I am not a huge fan of Walmart but recently I have learned that they donate a lot of goods to local charities. A friend of mine was evacuated for 3 days during the last round of fires and she stayed at a church in Porter Ranch. She said the manager from the Porter Ranch Walmart made several trips to the church to find out what people needed and then came back with huge palets of donated merchandise. I still prefer Target to Walmart but it did make me see Walmart through new eyes!
Ditto!
i have worked for sam’s and they are alright. i wouldnt mind the 10% off card that the employees get. its close to home and my husbands office and my kids school and if they are flexible it would be fine
Wal Mart does help millions of families make ends meet. Although there are many affordable stores that can be an alternative. i was actually surfing sears.com and found a great deal on a Wave Hi Tide skateboard that normally retails for 100.00 and is going on clearance for 29! Its a bummber i couldnt have seen it when i bought my son one for full price last summer. Anyway if anyone is interested i would suggest checking out this awesome toy for summer fun
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00688281000P?keyword=hi+tide
I guess i would work for Walmart if that was the
only choice i had.
it does have a checkered past. That is one reason
i try to never shop there. Plus they very much
have things that are made in China. I have decided
in my conscience that I don’t want to buy stuff made
there because of China’s inhumane acts and
oppression of it’s people.
BUT I too know that people need jobs. They have not so good history of how they treat employees (and I have seen it first hand) BUT people need
jobs.
I do applaud the manager of the Porter Ranch
store. This was a wonderful act of charity.
So I think that it truly is up to everyone’s conscience.
I agree with you, Jenny. Where we spend our dollars is up to us and should be a conscious decision. I think more people (myself included) would buy “green” products if we could afford it. But I suppose if I valued the green aspect more, these more expensive products would feel worth it. Hmmm…perhaps I am not the environmentalist I think I am! Or maybe I should write a post about cheap ways to be green. Thanks for the idea!
Hey Julia,
That Is a great Idea!. We who wish they could by the
better, kinder to the environment and us stuff, could really use knowledge about how to buy at a Bargain!
I’ve worked retail before so if I needed a low-stress job and Walmart was hiring, and the store was convenient and it had hours I wanted and the pay was fair and I wasn’t forced to do a Walmart cheer every shift then I would work for them.
I think the fact that Wal-Mart is hiring sooo many new people tells us they are doing something right. Look at some of the high end retail stores that just won’t bring their prices down, and people are looking elsewhere to shop with their money.
I say, if you need the job now, then go work! It doesn’t have to be forever.
I have worked for Walmart in high school and all through college. I even received the Wal-Mart Associate Scholarship. The company did a lot of good things for me, but something that always made me mad was their practice of hiring new employees at a higher wage than current employees (for example, me, who had worked there for 5 years and knew how to do everything in the store at one point). Treating your current employees with respect, and keeping their wages comparable with new hires is important if you want to hold on to a competent work force.
I got laid off from my job of 8 1/2 yrs and decided to go to school. Finished a year ago December and could not find a job! One reason is because I am not bi-lingual.Thank goodness for Walmart – they don’t discriminate. I am trying to save my home and you just gotta do what you need to do to make it through this rough economy. I would not make Walmart my career but I am thankful everyday that I do have a job.
I find it interesting that 26% of your readers, which presumably are frugal people, wouldn’t work at Wal-Mart. I wonder what the results for other discounts like Target would be? My gut tells me there is more bad blood for Wal-Mart then others based on their business practices.
Ryan, I think you hit the nail on the head.
I had worked for walmart at one point in my life. It was an interesting experience and it was not because of walmarts policies. They treat their employees with a lack of respct. Half of the managers would not say hello to any of the employees (they felt they were better than everyone else). They were rude when they did talk.
Walmart may be adding employees to its work force, but they way that they operate their business forces other companies to downsize theirs. You may be getting quite the bargain, but those bargains cost jobs in other sections of the community. How many grocery stores went under once walmart came to your town? How about shoes and clothing stores? When it comes to small towns Walmart has basically destroyed them.
I do work at Wal-Mart, part time. I needed to supplement my income to make ends meet. Most of my current co-workers work there as a second job. Do I wish they paid more, sure. They pay competitvely based on the skills and education needed. Like any business, there are good and bad managers. I have had both. Some were absolutely terrific. I appreciate the stock matching plan. It is the only financial investment I have that is actually holding its value in this market. I am thrilled each quarter when I receive a bonus in my paycheck based on our store performance (safety and profitability). I appreciate being able to get insurance as a part time employee after a year of service. I appreciate being able to participate in a 401k. When I was laid off my full-time job last fall, Wal-mart increased my hours and offered to move me into management training. Plus, I could have started up my health insurance immediately due to losing it with my other employer. The discount helps a lot too. It doesn’t always seem like it on a single purchase, but when I add all of them up, the savings has been aubstantial. I love seeing our customers, neighbors, and friends. I love that twice Wal-mart has allowed me to transfer to another store as my full-time employment changed. To me, that flexibility is a big reason to work for Wal-Mart. I love too that we recycle and reuse our cardboard, all our hangers, all our plastic, etc. We use sky lights to help reduce energy consumption in our stores. I have seen many thousands of dollars poured into local communities and am always impressed. They sponsor fund-raisers often, as well as community service activities. The longer I am with Wal-Mart and the more I see in action, the more impressed I am, and the prouder I am to be a Wal-Mart employee. I have made wonderful caring friends who have been there to support me through my life challenges: financial, emotional, vamily, and unemployment. Sure, sometimes we did the cheer and it felt hokey, but the company has become a part of me. I am grateful to be a part of it.
I find it interesting how so many people say they don’t shop wal-mart for all these various reasons, but when the economy takes a serious downturn all the sudden those same people are forced to shop there. I’ve always shopped there for 1 reason. Why spend more when you don’t have to. All those hipocrits make me mad! I also have worked for wal-mart 1 year and to have flexability and a low stress job to supplement my husbands income and still be home when I need to for my kids is awesome. I’ve never worked for a company so willing to support their employees!
For those of you who think Sprawl mart is a great do-gooder business, think about how they do their business. They set up a store, provide super low prices until all competition is gone, then raise the prices to higher than what the competition originally had! They shut down businesses, who also employed people. The # of people out of work from Sprawl-Mart is higher than their own employment. No way would I ever work for such a greedy company
Walmart is not adding any more jobs. They just cut almost 1000 jobs at home office. This little tidbit of news is walmart just trying to make themselves look better to the outside world. Do research, look at facts, they are a huge problem to America as far as their supposed sustainability, caring employer, and all around general nice guy company. They import 3/4 of their inventory because they do not want to spend their money on American made goods. As for their donations to anyone, do you really think they are not reimbursed some way?! The merchandise they donate is all marked as claims, or damaged, lost merchandise. So they get their money back for the stuff they do “give away.” Now they have implemented a program where they give old, outdated, CLAIMEDF food stuffs to feed America, but the stuff is boxed up and shipped elsewhere. Sorry guys, but if I need to rely on a soup kitchen, I would expect to get food that is not substandard. Just because I am poor doesnt mean my kids need to eat food that was rejected by those who could use their foodstamps and buy it. I would not expect top of the line food, just food that is still in safe zones for consumption.
Not one of the Walton children are worth LESS then 16 BILLION dollars, so I think they need to start paying a fair wage, or let the unions in to see that we are treated better.
The question Would you work for Wal Mart? Yes! and I would be proud of it. I find that a lot of the responsives to that question is very rude. Its like its beneath them to work at Wal Mart. I find that if you show respect by speaking for example you’ll gain respect. I’m sure the people at the corporate level do not condome this kind of behavior toward employees and if they knew of this I’m quite sure they would be having classes on how to give great customer service. When Wal Mart first started to grow I remember seing their employees in their ads but now I don’t see those kinds of ads for Wal Mart. I have a son who applied to Wal Mart but was never acknowledge of his interest in the company–but it didn’t stop me from shopping there. If Wal Mart create 22,000 jobs this year that would be wonderful and just maybe the economy would start to turn around.
Haven been a high level manager with this anti society conglomerate. I with resounding vehemence would never work for them again nor would I allow anyone I came into contact with to be bamboozled into working for them let alone shopping there. I have intimate knowledge of how they run this monopoly domestically and internationally and the way they view hourly employee’s is despicable. When I took the Corporate position, I had done my research and viewed philosophies of business, facts and figures information. However, that is the public curtain that hide the shame that is corporate Wal-Mart. Never would I suggest anyone shop there nor work here. Wal-Mart “trains” its shoppers and disregards its works as less than human value. Wal-Mart is part and parcel to the decimation of our economy as well as the denigration of our American retail workers. 3/4 of all Wal-Mart employee’s with tenure of 10 years or more are still below the poverty line. I could write for 3 days about the info I have that brought me to resign from the company with in 9 months of starting there. The only reason that matters to me as to why I resigned is, I would not sacrifice my morals and values and desecrate the value of my fellow Americans to line to pockets of the other CEO’s and the Walton Family. The average shopper has no idea how much sacrifice a tenured Wal-Mart employee has give to make sure you get a $3 laundry basket.
The various comments reveal a continuum of experiences and opinions as to Wal-Mart. But the bottom line is that no one is forced to work there. If lack of education or other factors prevent someone from being hired elsewhere, then it’s a good thing that Wal-Mart hires them. If an employee doesn’t like the pay, benefits, attitude, whatever–he/she is free to quit. Similarly, no one is forced to shop there. Putting other companies out of business? It’s called free enterprise.
last comment i read said, ” putting other companies
out of business, it’s called free enterprise”
You a business owner? Maybe you should
talk to some that have been put out of business.
The tendency now towards huge wharehouse
type businesses takes away from personal
cusomer service, which by the way is an integral
part of customer service businesses.
No people don’t have to work there or buy there,
but the very controversy that surrounds these
kinds of new types of businesses has literally changed the landscape of free enterprise.
Alas it is now a global landscape. Be careful how
happy you seem to feel about this. I feel it is
disentegrating the fact that anyone that wants
to start a small business in this land must now
have to compete with these conglomerates.
Ability to start up such businesses and compete?
Not happenin’ anymore. Happy Shopping!
I believe that people wield great power. If conglomerates are wiping out small businesses, it is because they are giving customers what they want. Again, no one is forcing customers to leave small businesses to shop at conglomerates. Why are they doing so? It is what it is, Jenny.
Heather wrote: “that always made me mad was their practice of hiring new employees at a higher wage than current employees . . .” Always made you mad? I bet there was one time it didn’t–when you were that new hire.