The company is starting its deals earlier than ever this year, at 6 p.m. on Thursday.
The largest American retailer says it is putting more than 1 million of its employees to work on Thanksgiving, a national holiday reserved for family gatherings.
In an email sent to reporters on Wednesday, Walmart estimated that more than one million associates will staff the company�™s stores across the US during Thanksgiving, the Huffington Post reported.
That is more than 70% of Walmart�™s employees in the US.
In a plan to win over the �œBlack Friday creep” and following other retailers such as Kmart, Target and Best Buy, the company is pushing the sales bonanza into Thanksgiving Day. The company is starting its deals earlier than ever this year, at 6 p.m. on Thursday.
More than 60 percent of Americans believe the stores should stay closed on Thanksgiving, allowing the workers to take a day off and spend time with their families, according to a HuffPost/YouGov poll.
Shoppers and workers have objected to the retailer�™s greed through social media and online petitions, accusing it of injecting consumerism into a family-centered holiday.
Walmart says it paid over 475,000 of its associates more than $25,000 last year, but remains silent on the fact that majority of people working at the company earned less than $25,000.
A report by the think tank Demos showed the corporation can afford to pay all of its workers at least this amount with no need to raise prices.
Underpaid workers in Walmart struggle to make ends meet and consume about $1 million in public benefits at a single location. One store even held a food drive for its own workers to help them get by during the holiday season.
Walmart is the largest corporation and retailer in the world by revenue. The Walton family, which controls over 48 percent of Walmart, is the wealthiest family in the world with an estimated net worth of $150 billion (as of August 2013), according to Forbes’ latest ranking.
AN/ISH
Source: Press TV