Walmart to lay off nearly 1,500 employees in Atlanta

Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, has announced that it will lay off about 1,500 employees at its e-commerce fulfillment center situated on Fulton Parkway in Atlanta, Georgia. Speaking with Reuters, Walmart confirmed that employees were notified of the layoffs in advance, in late August.

Walmart spokesman Scott Pope also said the Fulton Parkway e-commerce fulfillment center will be reconstructed as part of the site's infrastructure transformation to meet specific needs. WFS (Walmart Fulfillment Services) will be located there in the future.

As a result of its own rapidly growing online business, Walmart has come close to modernizing and automating technological processes. As reported on Thursday, the company announced the future acquisition of Alert Innovation, a robotics company. Walmart hopes that implementing automation will help speed up delivery, reduce order processing time, while making its warehouses more high-tech.

Pope also assured that some laid-off employees are being rehired at other chain stores or at related supply chain businesses. Others are given help finding new jobs.

Surprisingly, the news comes two weeks after Walmart announced it would hire about forty thousand temporary employees to cope with the busy holiday season in the best possible way.

The reason is that many U.S. chains believe that during the holiday season, customers will prefer physical stores over ordering online, hence the level of need for employees of e-commerce fulfillment centers will drop.