Walmart chops 500-plus jobs at two Bay Area tech hubs as layoffs widen

Walmart logo is visible on an office building at the retail titan’s tech campus on California Avenue in Sunnyvale.
(Google Maps)

SUNNYVALE — Walmart has decided to slash well over 500 jobs at two of the retail behemoth’s tech hubs in the Bay Area, offering fresh evidence the wrenching reductions in the technology sector still afflict the region.

The job cuts from the retailer’s tech sites affected workers in Sunnyvale and San Bruno, according to documents Walmart sent to the state Employment Development Department.

All told, Walmart has decided to eliminate 568 jobs in the two Bay Area cities.

Here are the details of the job cuts that Walmart is planning at its tech campuses in the region:

— 388 jobs in San Bruno at a company e-commerce hub.

— 180 jobs in Sunnyvale, the location of another Walmart e-commerce complex.

Arkansas-based Walmart didn’t disclose details of the employment categories involved in the job cuts.

However, in both instances, the sites of the layoffs are Walmart technology research and office centers the company’s e-commerce operations.

In 2014 and 2017, Walmart disclosed plans to hire several hundred workers in both Sunnyvale and San Bruno. In 2014, Walmart said it planned a Sunnyvale hub with 1,000 tech workers for its e-commerce operations.

In 2023, Walmart agreed to sublease a huge tech campus in Sunnyvale totaling 719,000 square feet, in one of last year’s biggest commercial real estate deals.

Facebook app owner Meta Platforms had been leasing the choice office hub but decided to offer the office hub in northern Sunnyvale for sublease amid huge layoffs and cutbacks in space requirements.

Potentially, 2,800 to 3,600 Walmart tech workers could be based at the new Sunnyvale campus. It wasn’t immediately clear when Walmart would begin shifting workers to the north Sunnyvale office complex it had leased. The office complex is located near the corner of Crossman Avenue and Caribbean Drive in northern Sunnyvale. The property also fronts on East Java Drive.

As the layoffs in Sunnyvale and San Bruno loom, Walmart has offered some workers the opportunity to move to other offices, according to the WARN notices.

“Walmart is asking the majority of associates working remotely to relocate to one of our primary offices,” Walmart stated in the WARN letters.

The layoffs are scheduled to take effect on Aug. 9, the WARN notices stated. The layoffs were described as permanent. Walmart said the facilities where the affected employees were based would not be closing.

“Most relocations will be to our home office in Bentonville (Arkansas), but some will be to our offices in the Bay Area or Hoboken (New Jersey)” in the New York City area, Walmart stated in the WARN letter.

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