Walmart Newest Profit Strategy Is To Hire A Bunch Of Temporary Workers

WEAK LABOR MARKET

The move to hire more temps throughout the year has not caught on with Wal-Mart’s rivals such as Target, Costco and Sears, all of which said they are hiring full time and part-time employees but don’t plan to hire temps outside of seasonally busy periods like the holidays.

“I don’t know about others’ practices or philosophies, but I can say that Costco’s general hope and expectation when hiring an employee is to make it a long-term relationship,” said Patrick Callans, vice president for human resources and risk management at Costco.

Only discount chain Dollar General Corp told Reuters it does hire temp workers year-round but declined to comment on the reasons.

Labor market experts said that the relatively high U.S. unemployment rate, which was 7.6 percent in May, and the large number of people not counted because they have left the labor force at least temporarily, does give companies like Wal-Mart the conditions to attract temp workers. That may be less the case if the economy continues to improve and the jobless rate falls.

Hiring temps is “one strategy” that retailers could use to mitigate the potential rise in healthcare costs due to the new healthcare care law, said Neil Trautwein, a healthcare lobbyist for the National Retail Federation. “Another strategy could be employing more part-time employees.”

Wal-Mart already has begun to change the healthcare plans it provides workers. Last November, it said that newly hired part-time employees would have to work a minimum of 30 hours a week, up from 24 hours previously, before they can qualify for health coverage.

Its U.S. employees also faced an 8-36 percent increase in premiums in 2013, the company said at the time, prompting some workers to forego insurance. The majority of eligible employees at Wal-Mart sign up for the company’s health insurance.

Under the reforms, large companies must next year offer healthcare to 95 percent of employees who work more than 30 hours a week or pay a penalty of $2,000 per worker for the entire workforce.

When the work hours are so variable that the employer is not certain whether an employee qualifies, they can elect to determine eligibility by measuring hours during a period of up to 12 months, a strategy Wal-Mart said it plans to use.

Temp workers may therefore have to wait a year – provided they are still employed at the company – to find out if they are eligible.

“A temporary worker may never get that far,” said Barbara McGeoch, a principal and health benefits expert at consulting firm Mercer’s legal, regulatory and legislative group. “They may never get the coverage.”