A Reuters survey of 52 stores run by the largest U.S. private employer in the past month, including one in every U.S. state, showed that 27 were hiring only temps, 20 were hiring a combination of regular full, part-time and temp jobs, and five were not hiring at all. The survey was based on interviews with managers, sales staff and human resource department employees at the stores. The new hiring policy is to ensure “we are staffed appropriately,” when the stores are busiest and is not a cost-cutting move, said company spokesman David Tovar. Temporary workers, he said, are paid the same starting pay as other workers.

And hey, since Walmart never gives rank-and-file workers any raises, that means the starting pay that temps and other workers get is the same as longtime workers get! (Would that "starting pay" be the minimum wage, by any chance?) Apparently we're supposed to be excited that Walmart's workforce is less than 10 percent temps—which sounds like a relatively small number until you learn that before 2013, it was about 2 percent temps.

Don't you love that Walmart is like "we're using more temp workers because Reasons, but perish the thought that we're doing it to screw workers"? Even if the wages can't really get any lower, having more temps means people who are even more worried about keeping their jobs and definitely aren't going to be trying to organize and improve working conditions. Total coincidence with the increase in workers fighting back against Walmart's lousy pay and conditions, I'm sure.