Wal-Mart
Article in the NY Times Business section this morning about the retail giant. Nice chart:
Not a shocker, I hope. the important information, though, is that the chart represents full-time workers, not all workers. In the house that Sam Wal built, 74 percent of workers are full time, leaving a lot of people without benefits. Health insurance is the biggie: only 48 percent of Wal-Mart employees are insured, versus 82 percent at Costco.
Wal-Mart spokespeople and supporters claim that the company has no responibility to treat workers better than the law requires, and that retail, always a low-paying sector, shouldn't be expected to provide the same kind of middle-class lifestyle that GM did during the last century. But if not Wal-Mart, who? We're transitioning into a service economy, in America and, soon to follow, the world as a whole. Big manufacturing is out. IT and retail are in. If we can't figure out a way for those to support our expectations, we're in trouble.
Not a shocker, I hope. the important information, though, is that the chart represents full-time workers, not all workers. In the house that Sam Wal built, 74 percent of workers are full time, leaving a lot of people without benefits. Health insurance is the biggie: only 48 percent of Wal-Mart employees are insured, versus 82 percent at Costco.
Wal-Mart spokespeople and supporters claim that the company has no responibility to treat workers better than the law requires, and that retail, always a low-paying sector, shouldn't be expected to provide the same kind of middle-class lifestyle that GM did during the last century. But if not Wal-Mart, who? We're transitioning into a service economy, in America and, soon to follow, the world as a whole. Big manufacturing is out. IT and retail are in. If we can't figure out a way for those to support our expectations, we're in trouble.
posted by onlooker at 9:44 AM
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