Wal-Mart announces expansion of veteran hiring

Nate Waits wakes up before 3 a.m. four days a week to get to his job at a Bentonville distribution center for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., where the former Marine is among more than 92,000 veterans the company has hired in the past two years.

As the two-year anniversary approaches of the Veterans Welcome Home Commitment program the company launched on Memorial Day 2013, the retail giant announced Wednesday that it is expanding its original plan to hire 100,000 veterans by 2018 to hire a total of 250,000 recently discharged veterans by 2020.

Chris Sultemeier, executive vice president for logistics at Wal-Mart, said the company has been pleased with the skills that the veterans bring to a range of positions including retail, distribution and management. He said about 8,000 of the original hires already have been promoted.

“Veterans work. They’re disciplined; they’re teamwork focused. They’re typically committed and loyal,” said Sultemeier, who is an Army veteran.

Waits, 25, says he doesn’t mind the early mornings or the structured day. He manages about 45 employeeswho load and unload trailers at the distribution center .

If the company is successful, the 250,000 veterans would make up close to 20 percent of the retailer’s 1.3 million U.S. workers.

Sultemeier said there are high concentrations of veteran hires near large military bases such as Fort Hood in Texas or Fort Bragg in North Carolina. But the company also has helped qualified veterans, who have been honorably discharged since Memorial Day 2013, find work in areas where there are often fewer job options.