Today In Retail: Amazon and Walmart on Hiring Sprees; Retailers Look at Mall-Based Fulfillment to Scale Logistics

In today’s top retail news, the two largest private employers in the U.S. are looking to hire tens of thousands of new workers, while retailers and logistics companies see underutilized mall space as a potential answer to capacity concerns. Also, Target’s chief information officer is set to retire next year after seven years with the retailer, and ThirdLove’s CEO tells PYMNTS that she’s not worried about losing customers to a newly relaunched Victoria’s Secret.

AMZN vs WMT Weekly: Retailers Look to Fill Thousands of Jobs and Walmart Heads to NYC

Walmart said this week that it plans to add 20,000 employees to its distribution centers, fulfillment centers and transportation offices, while Amazon aims to hire for more than 40,000 corporate and tech roles across the U.S. in addition to “tens of thousands” of hourly positions in Amazon’s Operations network. Walmart and Amazon are the top two private employers in the U.S. at 2.3 million and 1.3 million workers, respectively.

Mall-Based Micro-Distribution Centers Put Fulfillment ‘Closest to the Population’

Some retailers have built their own ability to fulfill online orders from physical stores — Walmart perhaps is the largest example — but for many retailers, Fillogic Co-founder and Co-CEO Bill Thayer said, the growth of eCommerce has happened too fast for them to scale their fulfillment operations. Fillogic converts underutilized, but not customer-facing, space at shopping malls and other large physical retail locations into tech-enabled micro-distribution hubs.

Target CIO Mike McNamara to Retire in 2022

Target Chief Information Officer Mike McNamara plans to retire next year after spending seven years helping the retailer transform its tech operations. McNamara said that “professionally and personally, the timing is great to begin the process of retiring and transitioning to a new CIO. The technology team and platform are in brilliant shape, and our business is already taking on its next growth chapter.”

ThirdLove Expects to Keep the Customers Victoria’s Secret Lost

In the past several months, Victoria’s Secret has embraced inclusivity, charting an almost completely new path for its brands as it breaks away from Bath & Body Works and former parent L Brands. Heidi Zak, co-founder and CEO of ThirdLove, told PYMNTS that given the high cost of switching bra brands, though, regaining market share may prove difficult for Victoria’s Secret. “If women have changed to brands that they love with products they love, I think it’s hard to get somebody to come back,” she said.