Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to hire 150,000 people in China over the next
five years, as it prepares for a major store expansion.
Workers prepare for the opening of
Wal-Mart's store in Pudong New Area in Shanghai in this picture taken
on July 28, 2005. The US-based firm plans to hire 150,000
people in China over the next five years, as it prepares
for a major store expansion.. [Shanghai Daily] |
Joe Hatfield, chief executive of Wal-Mart Asia, who has
worked at the world's biggest retailer for more than 30 years and was its first
employee in China in 1994, said on Sunday the company plans to open 20 stores in
the country this year and is racing to train more staff so that it can speed up
growth.
"We're really going to ramp this up," Hatfield said while touring stores in
Shenzhen, Wal-Mart's China headquarters.
The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer currently has 56 stores in China,
putting it behind other global chains such as France's Carrefour, which had 78
at the end of 2005.
Wal-Mart did not even register enough sales to crack the top 30 on the
Ministry of Commerce list of the biggest retailers in China, released last
month.
That looks set to change.
"We're going to be growing in all directions," Hatfield said, adding that new
stores were planned for both the major metropolises and the smaller cities.
Wal-Mart's China operations could be as big as its US business in 20 years,
Hatfield said -- something that Wall Street analysts have long predicted.
Wal-Mart now has about 3,700 US stores.
The United States generated 80 percent of Wal-Mart's $312 billion in sales
for the latest fiscal year, but slowing growth and rising opposition at home
have made international expansion all the more appealing.
America's love-hate relationship with Wal-Mart is well-documented. The
retailer boasts that 100 million people shop at its US stores each week, and yet
its critics have grown increasingly vocal in the past year.