Walmart to close 3 U.S. tech hubs

Walmart is closing its technology hubs in Austin; Carlsbad, California; and Portland, Oregon, the retail giant confirmed Tuesday following an initial report in the Wall Street Journal.

The retailer said its Global Tech team will no longer operate out of those three cities because the company has “made the decision to focus our tech team’s presence within select locations.”

“The unique culture and values of Walmart are at the core of who we are—to our customers, members, associates and partners,” the company said in a statement. “We hope to relocate or allow for remote work for all affected associates.”

Walmart will pay for workers in those three locations to transfer to other offices, such as one in San Bruno, California, or in Bentonville, Arkansas, where the retailer is headquartered, the WSJ reported.

Most of the global tech team will also be required to work in the office at least two days a week, the newspaper reported.

The closures follow massive layoffs in the tech industry nationwide. More than 77,000 U.S. workers at tech-based companies have been laid off so far in 2023, according to Crunchbase news. Amazon early this year expanded its planned layoffs from 10,000 to more than 18,000 employees, citing an “uncertain economy.”

Just under a year ago, Walmart’s Global Chief Technology Officer and CDO Suresh Kumar said Global Tech was the company’s fastest-growing corporate team and that it was tech hubs in Toronto and Atlanta in 2022 while hiring more than 5,000 workers.

In 2022, the team had more than 20,000 employees at 17 tech hubs around the world, including locations in India, Mexico, Costa Rica and Canada.

“Walmart Global Tech develops and manages the foundational technologies on which customer experiences are built, including cloud, data, enterprise architecture, DevOps, infrastructure and security,” Kumar wrote in a corporate blog post. “We’re also a world-class enterprise services organization that develops solutions to help 2.3 million Walmart and Sam’s Club associates work and live better.”

In recent days, Walmart has also said it is closing its pickup-only locations.

Its final pickup-only store, in suburban Lincolnwood, Illinois, is slated to close on Friday.

“We are constantly innovating and testing ways to meet and exceed customer expectations on pickup and delivery,” Walmart said in a statement to WGB. “While we don’t have any other independent pickup locations open to date beyond these, we’ve integrated learnings from these and other test-and-learn pilots from our existing stores. Walmart pickup is now offered from more than 4,570 locations, and same-day grocery delivery is offered from more than 3,550 stores.”

Walmart currently operates more than 10,500 retail units worldwide, including 4,720 Walmart stores in the U.S. and 600 Sam’s Club locations.