Walmart to add 150 stores in five years as part of big expansion

Walmart will add 150 stores in the United States over the next five years, a major expansion project for the retail giant.

The company, which announced its move to a declarations On Wednesday, he said it would involve millions of dollars of investment. Walmart employs about 1.6 million people in the United States and has said it hires hundreds of people every time it opens a new store.

Walmart had just over 4,600 stores at the end of October 2023. The company has not opened a new store in the United States since the end of 2021.

Most Walmart stores planned to open in the coming years will be newly built, while others will be conversions of existing locations to new formats. The first two new stores will open in the spring, in Florida and Georgia, and the company is finalizing plans to build 12 more stores this year. It also announced it would renovate 650 sites.

Walmart announced this week that it was increasing store managers’ salaries and benefits and offering them stock grants.

Consumer spending, which fuels the U.S. economy, has held up despite shoppers being constrained by high inflation and rising interest rates. Credit card data from the holiday season showed that retail sales increased compared to last year.

Jordan Holman reports contributed.