Walmart wants to hire more than 50,000 workers in new business push

Walmart said Wednesday it wants to hire more than 50,000 employees by the end of April, as it chases growth in new business categories from online grocery to advertising.

The big-box retailer said the new hires will include personal shoppers, delivery drivers and data scientists, among others.

Walmart, which is already the nation’s largest private employer with about 1.6 million employees, aims to ratchet up its advertising business, expand its third-party marketplace and launch its direct-to-fridge grocery delivery service in additional markets.

Adding new employees could be a tall order at this time, though. It will be competing for labor with fellow retailers and restaurants in a tight market where some companies are raising pay and sweetening perks to attract workers. Walmart’s starting pay is $12, lower than the $15-per-hour minimum rate at rivals Target and Amazon.

Walmart spokeswoman Anne Hatfield noted that the company’s size gives employees an opportunity to move into higher paying roles. At stores, hourly pay is as much as $26 for “team leads,” a supervisor role that oversees departments like bakery. At distribution and fulfillment centers, supply chain workers’ hourly pay starts at $16 but can rise to $30, she said.

It has also added employee perks like the Live Better U program, which covers the cost of college tuition and textbooks for employees.

As part of its new business push, Walmart said Tuesday it would hire more than 5,000 engineers, data scientists and tech experts and turn Toronto and Atlanta into office locations for that global tech team.

Additionally, the company said it needs to hire more than 3,000 delivery drivers to scale up InHome, its direct-to-fridge grocery delivery business. Walmart intends to expand that service to 30 million households by year-end — up from 6 million now.

The push into new business is happening amid robust retail sales projections. The National Retail Federation said Tuesday that it expects retail sales to expand between 6% and 8% this year, including the effects from inflation-fueled prices.