I've read many comments on here, but none seem to touch on the reason it all started.
I work for Kroger myself, but I also own 2 small business, and see what many cannot.
A lot of you understand, or are at least aware of, something called 'versus last year'.
For those of you who haven't encountered this, a company looks at the profit or sales from a period the prior year and makes an educated guess, based on several factors, on how much higher the profit/ sales should be for the same period this year. It's basically forecasting, and much like its counterpart in weather, it's unpredictable at best.
That being said, if the company forecasters predict a 20% increase from last year, and the company only gets 17% more, they consider that a loss, even though it's still more money than last year.
Keeping all that in mind, the company uses those figures to promise shareholders, if any, a specific dividend share increase on their investment. If they promise, oh, say, 17 cents a share, but sales only allow for 13 cents, things like this layoff tend to happen.
It doesn't matter that they're still profiting over last year. It doesn't matter that the very people who worked themselves sick are being put on the unemployment line, not able to pay bills, buy groceries, etc. It doesn't matter that customers are leaving because there are less employees to give them a satisfactory shopping experience. It doesn't matter that they are driving a long standing company to extinction.
What matters is lining their pockets, riding in cars that cost more than everything we peons own combined, their mansions and jets, imported caviar and lavish parties.
They don't worry about the company dying because they've got theirs, and if it goes under, they'll likely either retire in luxury, or move on to another company and do it all over again. I've seen it happen many times. I'm not going to name names, but one CEO was ousted from a resort chain, then immediately hired at great expense by a gourmet food chain. That chain went from over 200 physical stores to just a handful and most of their business is e- commerce now.
Anyway, rumor is that, once enough high salary people are gone, the company is going to give more hours at store level to rebalance the employee to customer ratio. This, of course, will only happen once the projected profit target is met or exceeded, and only then if there is any money left over.
For my part, I'm going to keep on keeping on at my job at Kroger, and not hold my breath waiting for those hours to manifest.
Who knows, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, and it will actually happen...
3 replies (most recent on top)
While it is common place now to say we will eventually be replaced by robots it’s not necessarily true... no robot is going to unload the trucks, no robot is going to stock .. and I don’t just mean groceries and non food.... meat, cheese, deli, liquor... no robot will replace a pharmacist, meat cutter... no robot is going to cull and rotate produce... furthermore any robot technology is going to come with great cost... not only to implement but also maintain... but the things I already mentioned no robot can replace... now salaries managers ... easily replaced lol....
Its has nothing to do with vs last year !! It has to to woth modern technology and keep up vs the big guys like amazon walmart etc!! To much overhead and you cant invest for the future!! Sorry to say but everyone will be replaced by technology soon enough!! Look at the cashiers 1 cashier to run those self check outs you can order your groceries on line and delivered everything is a Convenience and thats the future folks!!! It’s a technology war and the way to win the customer !!!
Kroger s—s to work for. I have to stay, but this company is even close to being the company I started with 20 years ago.
You're right...it's all about greed. The Mcmullen's , Tuffin's, Kimball's and the rest of them will always make more money than they deserve from our sweat and aching backs.
I can't wait to retire from Kroger and I will NEVER shop one of their stores ever again.