Last year, Walmart hired about 5,500 pharmacists and pharmacy managers, more than 13,000 pharmacy technicians, and about 4,500 truck drivers. The company employed 1.6 million workers in the United States as of the end of March 2021, according to Walmart’s most recent annual report.
In a tight labor market, Walmart boosted employees’ pay to $16.40 an hour and up to $30 an hour in “select roles and market.”
The moves comes amid an ongoing worker shortage in the retail industry, partly triggered by the pandemic, as companies across the board struggle to retain and hire more workers.
“Alongside the health risks, uncertainty and stress of working during a pandemic, many service-sector workers continue to contend with chronically unpredictable and unstable work schedules,” according to a recent report from the Shift Project, a joint venture by Harvard University and the University of California, San Francisco.
— CNN Business’ Parija Kavilanz contributed to this report.
