Wal-Mart To Fire 7,000

http://www.wsj.com/articles/wal-mart-to-cut-7-000-back-office-store-jobs-1472743429?mod=wsj_streaming_stream

The jobs are coveted as a rare desk job in retail. “You are not running around the store on your feet all day,” and receive decent pay, says a Wal-Mart store accounting employee who earns about $13 an hour, or $27,000 a year. “Everybody wants to get in there. The jobs never open up,” says this person, who has worked at the store for nine years.

The back office cuts to Wal-Mart’s 4,600 U.S. stores is a sign that retail workers—one of the largest employee cohorts in America—face big changes as their employers spend heavily to compete with Amazon.com Inc. and grab foot traffic from other chains.