Wal-Mart promoting 25,000 employees

Hadley Malcolm | USA TODAY

Walmart is promoting 25,000 employees in the fourth quarter as it wraps up a year-long campaign highlighting opportunities for career development and financial stability at the company.

The world's largest retailer and the nation's largest private employer kicked off the on-the-spot surprise promotions at ceremonies Tuesday in its Secaucus, N.J., store and about 15 other markets including Atlanta and Denver. It's dispatching top executives to stores nationwide for similar events for the rest of its fiscal year, which ends in late January.

The mostly hourly workers will be promoted to different jobs — some to store management positions — and will receive higher pay and increased responsibility. The promotions are going to employees who have already applied and interviewed for the positions, says spokesman Kory Lundberg.

"This was going to be the year of standing up for associates," CEO Bill Simon told USA TODAY in an interview Tuesday. "We're proud of the jobs we offer."

The promotions are in addition to Wal-Mart's announcement in September that it would move 35,000 workers from temporary to part-time status and another 35,000 from part-time to full time by year-end. The latest promotion announcement Tuesday builds off of Walmart's effort since January to provide more transparency about career opportunities for Walmart workers.

At the National Retail Federation's annual convention in New York City at the start of the year, Simon said providing a better understanding of retail jobs and growth potential for employees, both internally and externally, was one of the company's initiatives.

"There are some fundamental misunderstandings out there about retail jobs, and we need to do better at explaining the opportunities we offer," he said. "As we listen to our associates, we've found that in an organization of 1.3 million people, it can be difficult to understand all of the options."

Walmart has often highlighted that 75% of its store management teams started as hourly associates. The retailer promotes more than 160,000 employees a year, and expects that number to be about the same this year.

While the publicly-announced promotions may seem like a PR move, Simon told USA TODAY that the announcement is about "standing up for associates."

"Our associates want us to make sure the media knows that we value them," he said. "That they're smart people and the jobs they've taken are good jobs."

Simon criticizes the media for writing about the company "in isolation" and unfairly distinguishing it from the rest of the retail industry.

Wal-Mart is often a target of attacks by critics, particularly union-backed groups that have argued the discounter puts profit ahead of its workers and pays meager wages.

Last week, OUR Wal-Mart, a group of current and former workers that have been staging protests at its stores, held a press conference in Washington, to pressure the discounter to pay all of its full-time workers at least $25,000 a year. It's planning another round of protests at its stores on the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional kickoff for the holiday shopping season.

The union-backed group latched on to a comment that Simon made at the Goldman Sachs retail investor conference last month when he said that more than 475,000 Wal-Mart workers earned more than $25,000 last year. OUR Wal-Mart inferred that with Wal-Mart employing 1.3 million workers in the U.S., about 825,000, or 63%, make less than $25,000 a year.

Wal-Mart says the group has distorted the figure, noting that more than 70% of its full-time hourly workers who have worked at its stores and its distribution centers for more than a year make at least $25,000. Wal-Mart isn't counting those who work at its Bentonville, Ark., headquarters or as drivers. Wal-Mart doesn't break down numbers for part-time and full-time workers but noted that full-time workers account for the majority of its workforce.