Sociopathic Capitalism: Sam's Club cuts jobs and outsources; Wall Street says it will bolster demand

Andria Cheng, MarketWatch


NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Wal-Mart's plans to cut more than 11,000 jobs at Sam's Club and outsource its product sampling and demonstration will better showcase its products and bolster demand at its wholesale-club chain, which has lagged its sister subsidiaries, analysts say.

Wal-Mart shares were up 0.2% at $53.03 in midday trading Monday. Through Friday, the Bentonville, Ark., company's shares had risen 9.5% in the past year, lagging the 49% jump of the S&P Retail Index.

In a letter to employees Sunday, Sam's Club's President and Chief Executive Brian Cornell said 10,000 product sampling and demonstration jobs, most of which are part-time, will be cut.

The wholesale-club chain, which charges membership fees and accounts for about 12% of Wal-Mart's more than $400 billion in annual sales, said it's outsourcing its in-club product sampling and demonstration to a third-party marketing company, Shopper Events, in a new program titled Tastes and Tips.

Shopper Events, of Rogers, Ark., already runs the "Bright Ideas" in-store demos for Walmart U.S. It plans to hire a similar number of staff to accommodate the new Sam's Club business, offering positions that the affected employees could apply for, Wal-Mart said. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wal-mart-up-as-sams-club-to-cut-11000-plus-jobs-2010-01-25

That's what this is all about. Building profits on the backs of the employees.

This seems to be the new corporate business model on Wall Street.

a perfect environment for sociopaths.

n/t

I can't even write a coherent protest.

Essentially they are saying, "If we cut consumer demand, we can increase consumer demand!" Beyond stupid.

I'm going to write a book with that title.

Chapter 1- Increasing unemployment to boast profits

as a nation, we should be looking at antitrust action against Walmart / Sam's club. at the very least, we should work to unionize the stores. if they want to be the biggest employer in America, i think unions are something they can expect. if they don't like that, they can close the stores.