Walmart picks South Carolina for new distribution center, creating 400 new jobs

Published: Oct. 19, 2021 at 6:09 a.m. ET

By

Tomi Kilgore

Walmart Inc. WMT, +2.09% said Tuesday it will create 400 new full-time jobs in South Carolina as it has selected Spartanburg County for a new high-tech grocery distribution center. The discount retail giant's stock rose 1.8% in premarket trading. The new center, with more than 720,000 square feet, will be its largest grocery distribution center, and is set to open in 2024. It will rely on employees, automation technology, robotics and machine learning to process fresh and frozen groceries. "Walmart's high-tech grocery distribution center will include game-changing innovations that are radically disrupting the supply chain, getting products onto shelves for our customers even faster, while saving time for our associates," said David Guggina, senior vice president of automation and innovation at Walmart U.S. The stock has edged up 0.3% over the past three months while the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.49% has gained 3.8%.

Zillow to stop purchasing U.S. homes after building big backlog and facing staff shortages: Bloomberg

Zillow Group Inc. undefined is pausing the purchase of U.S. homes as it works through a backlog of properties, Bloomberg News reported Sunday. The real-estate platform acquired more than 3,800 homes in the second quarter, after expanding into the home-flipping business in 2018 through its Zillow Offers unit. That company invites homeowners to request an offer on their house and uses its algorithms to come up with a price. If an owner accepts, it purchases the property, makes some repairs and puts it back on the market. "We are beyond operational capacity in our Zillow Offers business and are not taking on additional contracts to purchase homes at this time," a spokesperson for Zillow told Bloomberg in an email. "We continue to process the purchase of homes from sellers who are already under contract, as quickly as possible." The iBuying process, while powered by algorithms and pools of capital, also requires humans, including inspectors, contractors and decorators. But finding those workers has become challenging during the pandemic, which has see labor shortages across the economy. Zillow shares were down 6% premarket and have fallen 26% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 undefined has gained 19%.