With not just layoffs but actions and words which seem to be purposefully done to cause hurt, fear, and pain. Well, it is what it looks like and that is exactly what the intent is.
And it's going on at many companies now, not just Walmart and Sam's Club.
The reason this is being done is so far above most of your understanding that to tell you why would be casting pearls before swine. Suffice to say that while you were all sitting in front of the idiot box watching American Idol and Home Renovation shows, driving cars financed over 6 years, this was being planned.
Yes, we never had a recovery from 2008, that was the collapse of the financial system but hundreds of trillions of printed paper you call money and the loosest credit terms in history, where McDonald's employees could drive a 50K SUV produced what the ignorant masses thought was an economic recovery.
It was not. It was all a sham, and now the sham is over. Good luck, you'll sure as heck need it with what's coming next.