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

[marmar]

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

[rfranklin]

1. Shopper Events will hire them back at half the hourly wage...

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

[DJ13]

2. Suicide is great for the razor blade business

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

[fascisthunter]

3. Sociopaths Love This System, because it Harms People and they get Rewarded for doing so

a perfect environment for sociopaths.

[villager]

7. +1

n/t

[pscot]

4. This makes me so angry

I can't even write a coherent protest.

[provis99]

5. I call it Bizarro World, Orwellian economics.

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

[Taitertots]

10. Bizarro World Economics

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

Chapter 1- Increasing unemployment to boast profits

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. This is why I shop at Costco when I'm in the city.

[endless october]

8. i think it's obvious that the Walmart model has been terrible for America.

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.

[Strelnikov_]

9. Best-In-Class Executions!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/01/sams_club_layoffs_walmart.html

WalMart engaged Shopper Events, a 'third party marketing firm" to jazz up the in-store product sampling. Just a quick peek at the company's web intro declaims its strength at really bad English usage (On-brand Collateral!) and eyebrow-raising activity (Best-In-Class Executions!).