Special Report: Global Financial Crisis

    HOUSTON, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Wal-Mart Stores will cut 700 to 800 jobs at its northwestern Arkansas headquarters in an effort to reduce costs, the world's largest retailer announced Tuesday.

    The cuts are in the real estate, apparel and health and wellness departments, spokesman David Tovar said. He said the cuts will also include marketing and support administration jobs.

    But Wal-Mart currently has no plans to eliminate store level jobs, he said. Instead, it plans to add jobs at its New York apparel office and expects "to add thousands of jobs" at Wal-Mart stores and Sam's Club warehouses this year.

    "We still plan to open between 125 and 140 new stores for which we plan to hire thousands of new associates," Tovar said.

    Last year, Wal-Mart opened 166 new stores, leading to the cuts in the real estate unit.

    "Obviously, we don't need as many people to do the work to site a new store, to build a new store," Tovar said.

    The U.S. retailing giant is one of a handful of merchants that posted sales gains in January, while most others suffered deep declines in the wake of global financial crisis.

    Wal-Mart now employs more than 1.4 million people in the United States alone and about 2 million worldwide. About 14,000 people work in the Arkansas headquarters.

Global Job Cuts

·Panasonic to cut 15,000 jobs

·Starbucks to cut 6,700 jobs

·SAP to cut 3,000 jobs

·Intel to cut up to 6,000 jobs

·Caterpillar to cut 20,000 jobs

·Warner Bros. to cut 800 jobs

· Ericsson to cut 5,000 jobs

· Sony to cut 8,000 jobs

· Valeo to cut 5,000 jobs

· Chanel to cut 200 jobs

· Volvo Cars to cut 3,400 jobs

· Credit Suisse to cut 5,300 jobs

· Rolls-Royce to cut 2,000 jobs

· Indonesia to cut 40,000 jobs

·UK finance sector to cut 15,000 jobs

·India IT industry to cut 50,000 jobs

· South Korea to cut jobs in public sector