Walmart Boosts Regional Manager Pay As Retailers Struggle To Find Leaders

Walmart Inc WMT is about to raise bonus and stock awards for regional store managers, enabling the top performers to earn over $600,000 as employers struggled to fill managerial roles at retailers and restaurants.

Also, Walmart reduced perks for office staff, including phasing out remote work, cutting pay, and restructuring health insurance plans, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

Regional managers heading clusters of a dozen Walmart stores can earn $420,000-$620,000, up from $320,000-$570,000 a year ago.

Also Read: IMAX Secures Netflix Deal for Exclusive ‘Narnia’ Theatrical Release, Stock Jumps

Walmart raised stock grants for market managers to $100,000 a year, up from $75,000. It increased the annual bonuses to 100% of base pay, up from 90%, a Walmart spokesperson told the WSJ. 

Minimum base pay increased to $160,000 a year, up from $130,000, enabling a market manager to earn $260,000 annually in base pay. 

Prior reports indicated that Walmart store managers bagged annual stock grants worth $20,000, potentially pushing the earners’ compensation above $525,000.

The revamp bolstered the average base salary for US store managers to $128,000, up from $117,000. A Supercenter manager with a top-end base salary of $170,000 could earn $530,000 after receiving the maximum bonus and stock grant.

In 2024, Amazon hiked the average compensation for U.S. fulfillment and transportation employees to over $29 per hour after hiring 150,000 full-time, seasonal, and part-time workers for the holiday season in 2022 and 2021. Full-time Amazon workers got an annual hike of an average of $3,000 ahead of the holiday season.

Walmart Sam’s Club shared plans to hike the pay for almost 100,000 frontline associates to over $19 per hour with the potential to earn thousands of dollars annually in bonuses.

Walmart reported third-quarter revenue growth of 5.5%, reaching $169.59 billion. The adjusted EPS of 58 cents beat the consensus of 53 cents. Walmart generated a free cash flow of $6.2 billion in nine months, ending on October 31, 2024. It ended the quarter with cash and equivalents of $10.0 billion.

Meanwhile, US Tech giants, including Microsoft Corp MSFT, Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL, Google, and Amazon.Com Inc AMZN, laid off thousands of workers between 2022 and 2023, citing cost cuts and other factors.

Walmart Stock Prediction For 2025

When buying a stock for a longer time horizon, it is important for investors to assess where they think the stock is headed in the future.

When mapping a stock's future trajectory, investors should consider factors including the future earnings expectations and expected performance against a benchmark.

Walmart’s revenue has grown at an average rate of 5.27% annually over the past 5 years. The average 1-year price target from analysts is $97.83, representing an expected 5.47% upside in 2026.

While past performance is not a guarantee of future results, investors should also look at a stock's historical performance when compared to both a benchmark index and the company's peers. Shares of Walmart have seen an annualized return of 27.69%, outperforming the S&P500 index by 16.35%. This compares to 3.36% growth in the overall Consumer Staples sector. Walmart has a beta of 0.4.

Walmart stock surged 72% in the last 12 months. Investors can gain exposure to the retailer through SPDR Select Sector Fund – Consumer Staples XLP and iShares Global Consumer Staples ETF KXI.

Price Action: WMT stock is down 0.14% at $93.10 premarket at last check Thursday.

Also Read:Nvidia Unveils AI Safety Tools to Boost Enterprise Trust; CEO Jensen To Miss Trump Inauguration

Image by Sundry Photography on Shutterstock