I paid over $210,000 to work at Walmart

Facing labor shortages, American giant Wal-Mart has published a program to recruit young graduate store managers in the United States, offering an attractive salary of more than $200,000 annually.

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Walmart explained, in a statement picked up by US media, that the pilot program dubbed “College2Career” is an accelerated training program for recent college graduates (and others) within 12 months of their graduation date.

Graduates will receive classroom training, one-on-one mentoring, and hands-on experience in store management.

“Exceptional” employees called “budding coaches” will have a starting salary of $65,000 or more per year.

These “high potential” employees will have store manager positions two years after they start, Walmart CEOs Amy Goldfinger and Lauren Stumsky said in a blog post explaining the program.

The executives added that Walmart store managers earned a median salary of $210,000 last year.

Additionally, Walmart plans to increase its internship offerings by 30%, hoping that a “majority” of its trainees will end up taking full-time jobs.

Walmart officials told the Wall Street Journal that the training program was part of its effort to avoid a potential shortage of store managers across its network of about 4,700 stores in the United States.

In April, Walmart revealed it would pay truck drivers a starting salary of between $95,000 and $110,000, up from the previous average of $87,500.