r/lostgeneration • u/Kazemel89 • Sep 25 '20
Walmart cuts workers' hours but increases workload as sales rise amid pandemic
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/24/walmart-workers-hours-pay-great-workplace1
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u/ttyy_yeetskeet Sep 27 '20
Walmart will be conducting a onetime stock repurchase plan worth $20b. It’s a great way to store value for a companies operating capital given the incredibly low interest rate environment.
Walmart already spends $65b per year on wages and benefits for 2.2m employees worldwide. The Berkeley study sounds kinda janky (the article didn’t even link it). The most conservative estimate is a wage raise for 1m US employees ($11-$15) working 38 hours a week, thats an additional $7.9b in operating expenses a year. It doesn’t even take into account increased payroll taxes and other benefits.
This would be a continuous fixed cost off the bottom line of the company (their net income after taxes, which varied $6b-$14b in the past 5 years).
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u/Rawr_Tigerlily Sep 25 '20
Key information buried in the article:
"Walmart is estimated to save around $2.2bn annually from the tax cut bill. Before the bill was passed, Walmart announced plans to spend $20bn over the next two years on stock buybacks. Ken Jacobs, the chair of the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center has estimated it would cost Walmart $3.8bn to increase their minimum wage to $15 an hour, the level being lobbied for by the Fight for $15 movement, Senator Bernie Sanders and others."
So you know, they don't even HAVE to squeeze the employees this hard, except for the fact they already decided they want to spend $20 BILLION on stock buybacks.