Company announces $15-billion share buyback programme at shareholder meet.
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, said it would create 5,00,000 jobs during the next five years to help fuel global sales.
The company announced the plan and a $15 billion share buyback program at its annual shareholder meeting today in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which was attended by 16,000 people.
Walmart, with more than two million employees worldwide, anticipated rapid international hiring in markets such as Mexico, Brazil and China where sales were advancing, CEO Mike Duke said. US hiring would depend partly on opening stores in urban markets, Eduardo Castro- Wright, US stores chief, said.
“What gives the opportunity for job growth is our business growth,” Duke, 60, told reporters today in Bentonville, Arkansas, the company’s base. Walmart isn’t prepared to provide hiring plans by country, although “we look international for a greater rate of growth,” he said.
Unemployment in US has put a “great deal of pressure on our customer base,” Duke said. Rising gasoline prices reduced the frequency of visits, contributing to lower sales by older stores in the first quarter, Castro-Wright said.
Castro-Wright reaffirmed Walmart’s May 18 earnings forecast that US same-store sales would range from a decline of two per cent to an increase of one per cent in the second quarter. Comparable-store sales have fallen for four straight quarters.
‘External Headwinds’
Regular gasoline throughout US has averaged $2.72 a gallon so far this year, an increase of 35 per cent from $2.02 during the same period last year, according to AAA, the nation’s biggest motoring organisation.
“These external headwinds are real,” Castro-Wright told shareholders. Competition from other retailers “is stiffer than ever,” he said.
US payrolls rose by 4,31,000 last month after a gain of 2,90,000 in April, figures from the Labour Department showed today. The increase was smaller than the 5,36,000 median forecast in a Bloomberg news survey of economists. Also, it reflected a jump in government hiring of temporary help for the 2010 census. Walmart fell $1.32, or 2.6 per cent, to $50.40 at 4.02 pm in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
The stock has slipped 5.7 per cent this year, while Target Corp, the second- largest discount retailer, has gained 9.2 per cent.
