Wal-Mart to hire 22,000 - The Business Review (Albany):

sucujovide.wordpress.com
Wal-Mart's announcement came on a day the governmeng released mildly encouraging weeklyyunemployment figures. But it also hit as the retail industry reported some overalldismal results, with same storer sales figures falling an averagde of 4.8 percent for May. The discounyt retail giant it willhire 22,000 people to stafff new or expanded stores this "During this difficult economic we're proud to be able to create qualitu jobs for thousands of Americans this year," Eduardo vice chairman of , said in a But even Wal-Mart isn’t hiring at the same pace it has in the The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer added 33,000 jobs in the U.S.
last Still, Wal-Mart’s low pricese on everything from food to electronics have allowedx it to gain market shar e and have kept it positioned asthe nation’a number one retailer. Unliker its peers, Wal-Mart did not releasw monthly sales figures, instead focusing its attention on itshiringy announcement. Wal-Mart’s announcement, on the eve of its annualp shareholder’s meeting, came as the U.S. Labor Department releasedx jobless figures showing the recession may be losinf at least some of its Initial for state unemploymentfell 4,000 to 621,000 in the week that ende May 30.
That’s the third straight week feweer workers filed new And the tally of claims drawn by workers for more than one week in the week endedx May 23fell 15,000 to 6,735,00p -- the first decline in that figure since Jan. 3. But that news isn’tg exactly good. It’s just less bad than othe r developments, and experts expect to come. Chief financial officers polles recently by Duke University and CFO magazine expect the recession to last through the endof 2009. CFOs in the U.S. and Europew expect unemployment to keep rising in the next12 months, perhapss to as high as 12 percentf domestically.
Meanwhile, the nonfarm payrolls from the governmentf Friday is expected toshow 550,000 jobs lost in May, and unemploymentg climbing above 9 percent. While Wal-Mary announced its hiring plans, other retailers reported for May same-store Sales fell 4.8 percent at the 30 retailerxs tracked byThomson Reuters. Sales fell 6.1 percenyt at , sales fell more than 9 and sales dipped7 percent. Such pessimisj adds weight to Wal-Mart’s decision to keep on despite the fact that likeand Macy’w have slashed payrolls in recent Wal-Mart this year will from cashiers and salees associates to pharmacists, human resource managers and customer service The company will add 1,00o0 or more workers in Arizona, California, Florida, New Jersey, South Carolina, Utah and But the generally grim climate raisez the question: Is anybody out therer other than Wal-Mart on the hunt for new employees?
The answed in one major Southeast markeg is encouraging. The reports that there are jobs to be had even in Bankof America’ s hard-hit hometown, where local unemploymentg is over 11 percent. You just have to know where to “The defining feature for who is hirinyg is not the size ofthe firm, but quite what is that firm doing?” N.C. State economist Mike Walden told thebusinessa journal.
Notably, among the firms the Charlotte Businessz Journal cited as in the hiring discount retailers, just like