Wal-Mart to hire 100,000 veterans
16 Jan 2013
Wal-Mart Stores said yesterday that over the next five years it would hire every veteran who had been given an honourably discharge from military service in the last year.
According to the nation's largest retailer, over 100,000 people are expected to find work through the programme, making it one of the largest hiring commitments for veterans on record.
In recent years, leave alone jobs, veterans have been finding it tough to find any work. Though the unemployment rate for veterans serving in recent wars has fallen somewhat, it still remained at a high 10.8 per cent in December, well above the 7.5 per cent rate for non-veterans.
"Too many of those who fought for us abroad now find themselves fighting for jobs at home," Bill Simon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart US said in a speech yesterday.
According to Simon, the retailer was already the largest private employer of veterans in the country, even before this new push. A Wal-Mart spokesman said around 100,000 of the company's 1.4 million US employees were veterans.
The programme is to open on Memorial Day. Most of the jobs would be in Wal-Mart stores and clubs, however, there would be some in its distribution centres and its Bentonville, Arkansas, home office. According to Simon, veterans would be required to fulfill the same basic hiring criteria as everyone else.
