Wal-Mart Stores Inc. laid off 511 employees from its Bentonville headquarters in January, Bentonville Mayor Bob McCaslin said Thursday. Wal-Mart declined to comment.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported that about 1,000 layoffs would occur nationwide before Jan. 31, but the company would not confirm the exact number affecting Arkansas.
McCaslin said that Michael Lindsey, Wal-Mart's director of public affairs and government relations, called to inform him off the layoffs about 8 a.m. on Jan. 20, the day the layoffs began.
Because of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, a company with more than 100 employees is required to notify the local government authority of a "mass layoff" that affects a certain number of full-time workers at an employment site during any 30-day period.
A Jan. 24 notification-act filing in California confirmed that Wal-Mart's e-commerce division laid off 174 employees across departments in two California locations.
-- Emma N. Hurt