Wal-Mart to shut doors on 269 stores

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced Friday that it plans to close 269 underperforming stores, including all 102 of its smallest Wal-Mart Express locations. They offer numerous same services as the larger stores, but are designed for smaller towns, like Clever.

The closures will impact about 16,000 employees worldwide, including about 10,000 in the U.S. It’s unclear how many employees will be affected by the closures in Tennessee.

Workers who are still unable to secure a position at another Wal-Mart after 60 days will be given severance pay, providing that they have worked with the company for at least a year, Wal-Mart said.

Wal-Mart is just the latest retailer to announce a large number of store closings.Macy’s said this month that it will shutter another 36 stores early this year, andFinish Line said that it would close 150 stores by 2020. The move also marks the end of its pilot Walmart Express programme, a bid to create a network of small corner stores to compete with dollar- store chains and drugstores.

“It’s positive that management is actually closing some stores”. Restructuring costs could cause the company’s fourth-quarter earnings to fall as much as 14% below Wall Street’s targets, analysts estimate.

Walmart shares fell 1.8% to $61.93 in NY as the broader market tumbled.

Walmart is shuttering many stores around the world and the one located in Baltimore City is shuttering too. The average Supercenter is about 178,000 square feet.

Over all, Wal-Mart has been slow to pull out of a flat sales period after the recession and was slow to react to the pace of growth in online shopping. But those stores face similar challenges. “Please don’t close this store, I need this store, I need this store”, said shopper Paula Cook.

“If I were mayor, I’d get on a plane and go to Bentonville”, to Walmart’s global headquarters in Arkansas, Gray said. In the same announcement, the company said it is planning to open 300 more stores globally next year.

Sam’s Club spokesman Bill Durling says membership numbers weren’t high enough to keep the store open.

Now, she will have to travel to the Clarksville Wal-Mart to shop, rather than making the short drive to the market. The other 115 stores are in Latin America, including 60 in Brazil.

Last week, Macy’s said it was closing 40 of its department stores and cutting 4,800 jobs.

Some investors were hoping for more.

“Every day throughout the day, so yeah it’s all day”, added Johnson. “This sends a chilling message to the company’s hardworking employees that they could be next and with no one standing up for them, that is no doubt the reality”. The firm acquired 10,023 shares of the retailer’s stock, valued at approximately $614,000.

“We remain fairly optimistic on the U.S. economy”, Barclays U.S. Economist Jesse Hurwitz said Friday.

Suzanne Kapner contributed to this article.