Image Courtesy of Walmart
July 18, 2025
Why Is Walmart Cutting Store-Support and Training Jobs?
Walmart is reportedly restructuring store-support and training roles as it looks to simplify its organizational structure in an apparent shift from a corporate to more of a local focus.
Bloomberg, which first reported the news, said that hundreds of store-support roles would be affected.
Walmart Eliminates Market Coordinator Role, Trims Academy Coach and Coordinator Roles
The cuts include eliminating the market coordinator role, which assists Walmart market managers with data compilation, analysis, and administrative tasks, as well as coordinating projects and events. Market managers are responsible for supervising roughly a dozen store managers each.
Regarding those changes — Cedric Clark, Walmart U.S. EVP, store operations — said in the July 16 memo attained by Drug Store News, “We’re simplifying our market support structure, reducing touchpoints and friction for our store associates. With improved processes and new tools, we’ve determined that the Market Coordinator (MC) role no longer serves the same purpose as when it was created. To help drive speed and clarity for our store leaders, we’re giving ownership of the remaining work to other market-level associates and eliminating this role.”
Walmart is also eliminating some Academy coach and Academy coordinator positions as it evolves the structure of Walmart Academy, its training facilities for developing store employees and managers, to accelerate training efforts. Academy coaches lead the training sessions at the facilities, while the Academy coordinator is more of an assistant role.
Clark wrote in the memo, “Specifically, we are moving from a one-size-fits-all staffing model to staffing our Walmart Academy facilities based on location, volume of participants, and training needs. Across all locations, we aim to train more associates in-person than we did last year, in addition to expanding online and mobile learning options so people can learn on the job. We’ll modernize our structure while maintaining the quality and accessibility of training. To achieve this, we’re adding some new roles in our higher-volume Walmart Academy locations and eliminating some Academy Coach and Academy Coordinator roles in other locations.”
Affected market coordinators and Academy coach employees will be offered store-level coach roles. Affected Academy coordinator staffers are being offered other store roles.
Walmart Continues Efforts To Streamline Operations
The moves build on Walmart’s efforts to streamline operations. In May, Walmart announced plans to cut about 1,500 jobs, affecting teams in global technology operations, e-commerce fulfillment in U.S. stores, and its advertising business of Walmart Connect.
In February, Walmart indicated it planned to eliminate nearly 700 jobs in New Jersey and North Carolina as part of a move to relocate employees to its main hubs in California and Arkansas. The job reductions come as Walmart in May said it would have to raise prices due to the high cost of tariffs.
Discussion Questions
What do you suspect is behind Walmart’s move to eliminate the market coordinator role in addition to certain Academy coach and Academy coordinator positions?
What are the common pain points national chains face in managing store support and training?
Poll
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Mohamed Amer, PhD
CEO & Strategic Board Advisor, Strategy Doctor
Pamela Kaplan
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Neil Saunders
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The headline view on cost cutting is that all retailers, including Walmart, need to protect profitability against the rising tide of tariff costs. Why these roles? Most likely because processes have been changed to include more automation and a greater use of AI in the market coordinator role. For coaching, a more localized approach makes sense as needs and volumes vary by location and staffing mix.
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They can perform the functions of these roles with AI tools. Plain and simple.
Organizations the size and scale of Walmart need to adjust and re-calibrate from time to time. For the past several years, Walmart has been leading the effort to support their frontline managers – more pay, better training, and technology. It’s mildly dismaying to see them trim costs related to their frontline managers, but also understandable. The biggest challenge I see in national chains is simply the lack of investment and resources in frontline manager training. The frontline teams drive in-store conversion, and retailers should be cautious about cutting programs that support these managers.
They’re preparing for the tariff apocalypse and demands from “above” that they absorb some of the costs. This isn’t rocket science.
Walmart is flattening its organization, creating a “do more with less” efficiency approach while potentially undermining years of investment in building frontline manager support. Walmart is eliminating headcount to offset the looming tariff-induced margin erosion. Optimizing for 2025 tariffs may jeopardize its ability to face peak holiday demands. For now, Walmart has prioritized short-term margin protection over long-term organizational resilience.
Sad but true – this is the result of the tariffs. Costs have to be absorbed somewhere!
Something had to give in the world of both tariff certainty and tariff uncertainty. Looks like AI came along at just the right time.
Whenever these strategic cost cutting moves occur, fewer people are being asked to do more. Systems can help but the brain bandwidth is still necessary. While this corporate support is eliminated, there should also be a reassessment of responsibilities for the local teams to absorb the additional “to dos”.
Today’s question attempts to separate cost reduction from improving efficiencies. Aren’t they the same thing?
My view is this is more AI related than tariffs although overall profitability is always a driver. Support and training are the low hanging fruit of AI solutions, particularly for Walmart. Tariffs are simply the latest margin pressure for Walmart. Cutting costs is a way of life there and has been for 50 years.
All retailers are finding ways to cut costs, especially with “tariffobia” being one of today’s big retail concerns. With automation and AI, store managers can access the data. The key is to know how to interpret it and what to do with it.
This is no different from what Walmart has always done: find ways to keep overhead down and pass the savings on to consumers.
Sometimes I feel like I can see the lessons learned meeting that’s coming years in advance. Yes, Tariffs and general uncertainty about cost structure are a big driver for this, of course with the added promise of “efficiency” delivered by AI. So the “support” roles look too easy to reduce to save some dollars.
At the end of the day though, I think we will re-learn the lesson that human workers need human connection and support to be most effective in their jobs.