Walmart is Eliminating Greeters from 1,000 Stores

We've got a few Walmart locations here in Missoula, and it looks like a staple of the chain will be going away in the near future - Walmart is eliminating greeters from about a thousand stores nationwide.

Apparently, the store is replacing the greeter job with what they call "customer hosts," essentially a greeter with more responsibilities like helping out customers. Here's the problem - the greeter position has been an attractive job for people with disabilities, and many won't be physically able to continue working as customer hosts.

That's because much of what Walmart lays out for the customer host's duties include heavy lifting, standing for long periods of time, corralling carts, cleaning up spills, and more - many of these things would be impossible for the disabled employees who formerly worked as greeters.

We'll see how this ends up affecting Missoula, but this seems like a short-sighted decision on Walmart's part - what do you think?