The largest private employer in the U.S. is looking to expand its footprint to reach even more customers.
Walmart U.S. CEO John Furner announced Wednesday that the Arkansas-based company is looking to build 150 modernized stores over the next five years, its latest effort to reinforce its role as a community pillar. Of the 150, some will convert smaller stores into bigger ones.
It will mark the first time Walmart has opened a new store since November 2021, a spokesperson told FOX Business.
New stores will be a mix of 182,000-square-foot Walmart Supercenters that employ about 300 and 38,000-square-foot Neighborhood Markets that employ up to 95.
Walmart will hire hundreds of new employees in the communities where the new stores will be located. “These efforts represent millions of dollars in capital investment of labor, supplies and tax revenue, which benefit their respective communities,” Walmart CEO John Furner said in a blog post Wednesday. “They’ll help us reach and serve even more customers.”
The global retail behemoth, by all accounts, already has immense reach. In the U.S., the company operates just over 4,600 stores and employs about 1.6 million associates. That does not include the 599 Sam’s Club membership warehouses it also operates in the U.S.
