Real Career Opportunities at Wal-Mart Explain Why Wal-Mart Receives 20 Applications for Every Job

Several of my co-workers had relocated from other areas, where they had worked at other Wal-Marts. They wanted more of the same. Everyone agreed that Wal-Mart was preferable to the local Target, where the hourly pay was lower and workers were said to be treated with less respect (an opinion which I was unable to verify). Most of all, my coworkers wanted to avoid those “mom-and-pop” stores beloved by social commentators where, I was told, employees had to deal with quixotic management policies, while lacking the opportunities for promotion that exist in a large corporation.

~From Charles Platt's blog post "Life at Wal-Mart"


More than three-quarters of store management started at Wal-Mart in hourly positions, demonstrating the real career opportunities available in the company.

~From Wal-Mart's Economic Opportunities Fact Sheet

MP: That potential for career advancement probably explains why Wal-Mart typically has about 25-75 applicants per available job, and an acceptance rate of only 1-4%.

And yet we hear statements like this: "Jobs at Wal-Mart are a dead-end cycle that keeps people in poverty, " from Wendell Chin, coalition director for the Central Labor Council of Alameda County in California.