A New York Timesarticle says Wal-Mart is seeking to increase its part-time workforce from 20% to 40%. Wal-Mart denies it is trying to replace full-time employees with more temporary workers.
Investment analysts and store managers say Wal-Mart executives have told them that the company wants to transform its work force to 40 percent part-time from 20 percent, a claim that the company disputes.
To some extent, Wal-Mart is doing what business strategists recommend: deploying workers more effectively to meet the peaks and valleys of business in their stores.
Wal-Mart vigorously denies it is pushing out longtime or full-time employees and says its moves will ensure that its competitiveness. The company says it gives employees three weeks' notice of their schedules and takes their preferences into account, but that description differs from those of many workers interviewed. Workers said that their preferences were often ignored and that they were often given only a few days' notice of scheduling changes.
These moves have been unfolding in the year since Wal-Mart's top human resources official sent the company's board a confidential memo stating, with evident concern, that experienced employees were paid considerably more than workers with just one year on the job, while being no more productive.
Wal-Mart told the Times they are not aiming for 40% but they did tell the Times that about 25% to 30% of Wal-Mart's workers are currently part-timers. The New York Times also irritated Wal-Mart executives in October when they discussed a memo that talked about hiring healthier workers.
