Walmart Pledges To Spend $50 Billion More On U.S.-Made Goods Over Next Decade
This news comes at the same time as the mega-retailer announces plans to hire 100,000 recently discharged armed forces veterans over the next five years.
Walmart claims that around 2/3 of what it sells is sourced locally, but when you consider that 55% of its U.S. sales are groceries, that may skew the numbers a bit, especially with Walmart now buying more produce from within a few hundred miles of the stores in which it is sold.
The real concern among people who want to see more U.S.-made goods sold in the nation’s largest retailer is products like apparel, jewelry, and accessories. These only make up about 7% of Walmart’s sales, but that’s still billions of dollars a year.
In today’s announcement, Walmart said that both it and its Sam’s Club warehouse stores will carry more products in the following categories — sporting goods, basic apparel, storage containers, games and paper products — that come from U.S. suppliers.
Walmart Announces $50 Billion ‘Buy American’ Campaign [Reuters]
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