Walmart is extending its debt-free college benefits to high schoolers as a way to attract and retain workers in a tight labour market.
The nation's largest private employer said Tuesday it will offer free college SAT and ACT prep for its workers in high school, while offering two to three free general education college classes through an educational startup. Walmart estimates about 25,000 people under the age of 18 work at its stores, a fraction of its 1.3 million person U.S. workforce.
The enticements are part of an expansion of a program Walmart launched last year offering affordable access to a college degree for full-time and part-time workers who have been with the company at least 90 days.
The company is working with a Denver-based startup called Guild Education that offers a program costing a dollar a day at several non-profit universities with online programs that have had success working with adult learners.
It also said it's expanding the number of degrees beyond business and supply management to an additional 14 that will include cybersecurity and computer science.
Walmart says these programs will help provide workers with skills it needs in the future.
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About 7,500 adult workers are already enrolled in the program. Walmart expects 68,000 of its employees to be enrolled in the next several years.
The moves come as Walmart and others seek to recruit and retain higher quality entry-level employees in a tight U.S. labour market, while looking for untapped labour pools.
High schoolers represent an increasing challenging group. Fewer and fewer teens are entering the workforce, more likely to enroll in summer school or do volunteer work to help get them into college. And teens who do want to work face competition from older workers, young college graduates or foreign workers.
In fact, only 26.4 per cent of teens are expected to have a job by 2024, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics. That's down from 34 per cent in 2014. In July 1986, 57 per cent of Americans ages 16 to 19 were employed. The proportion remained over 50 per cent until 2002 when it began declining steadily.