How Walmart plans to prepare USAs largest private workforce for AI-driven future (apnews.com)

Walmart convened more than 300 workplace experts at its Bentonville HQ to push the Skills-First Workforce Initiative—an effort to base hiring and career pathways on demonstrable skills rather than college credentials—and highlighted company-led training and certification programs aimed at acute labor gaps such as truck drivers and maintenance technicians. CEO Doug McMillon framed the move as pragmatic workforce planning for an AI-reshaped labor market: Walmart employs roughly 2.1 million people globally (fewer than 75,000 in home office roles) and already has north of 200,000 associates picking orders, showing how task changes can shift job mixes without necessarily shrinking overall headcount. The significance for AI/ML and workforce strategy is twofold. First, Walmart models large-scale reskilling/upskilling and credentialing tied to specific operational roles, offering a blueprint for how enterprises can meet trade shortages as experienced workers retire. Second, McMillon emphasized that AI is likely to “plus up” jobs—augmenting frontline work (which will change more gradually) and accelerating change in white-collar roles—so organizations should focus on transparent, real-time learning, skills-based hiring, and human+technical leadership (e.g., store managers). For AI practitioners and HR strategists this underscores priorities: tooling that augments workflows, measurable skill credentials, and data-driven workforce planning to match demand across distributed, non-office workplaces.