Wal-Mart cutting about 7000 back-office store jobs

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will be cutting about 7,000 office jobs from US stores over the next several months as part of a restructuring effort.

A story from The Wall Street Journal said the higher-paying jobs are typically held by long-term employees, whose salaries could go up or down if they take a different role with the company. The goal is to get workers out of the backrooms and onto the selling floors as Walmart faces increasing competition from online leader Amazon.com (AMZN).

The company said it was too soon to be specific about wage levels for the displaced workers. Walmart spokeswoman Deisha Barnett said the big-box retailer wants more employees interacting with customers on the sales floor and will offer “consumer-facing positions” to workers impacted by the losses.

Where possible, Walmart associates are expected to transition into new roles – some could end up making more, some the same, or some less, Barnett says.

Wal-Mart tested the restructuring plan in about 500 stores earlier this year.

“This is about simplifying how stores work, there are a number of initiatives that are created to get more associates in front of our customers”, said a representative for Walmart.

The megastore is also shelling out $2.7 billion to train its workforce in these areas, while raising the prices of its minimum hourly pay to $10 an hour. The company just reported its eight straight quarterly increases in revenue at stores opened at least a year and the seventh straight quarterly gain in customer traffic at its Walmart U.S. namesake business.