Wal-Mart Layoffs Sensible

Wal-Mart’s decision to lay off 100 people and eliminate some 300 vacant positions at its Bentonville headquarters is newsworthy, but it’s not overly significant.

Several of the people laid off will get other positions in the company, which employs about 11,000 workers at its Bentonville headquarters. Those who don’t should have no trouble finding work in what remains such a low unemployment area.

When you consider all the companies making significant labor cuts, Wal-Mart’s news is tame. You just won’t find much fat in a tightly run operation like Wal-Mart.

And that reminds me: Just what were those 40,000 people doing for Lucent Technologies worldwide before their jobs were eliminated? It’s hard to imagine a company could cut that many employees and still have a business.