I get so tired of this.
Yes, the store will have 300 jobs that did not exist prior to the opening.
No, it will not lead to 300 more jobs being available in the retail sales field in the city. Since the sales of the new store will largely come from a reduction in sales by existing stores, the "new" jobs will be offset by loss of jobs elsewhere.
Since WalMart is by definition more efficient at selling, with greater sales per employee than most other stores, there might over the first year or so be an actual reduction in total retail sector jobs.
Walmart is also renowned for paying lower wages and keeping most employees on a part-time basis. Creating the possibility that the total city retail wages might go down.
This is offset by the probable fact that some people presently leave DC to shop at Walmarts elsewhere. So I agree it's complicated. I just disagree that a new retail store will add a net 300 jobs to the local economy.
Hard to believe that, in this day and age, folks still believe in the zero-sum fallacy.
I disagree. In all the cases I've seen a walmart open in smaller towns it created so much customer traffic that dozens of new businesses spring up around them.
A small business that would never have would have opened anywhere due to ‘low traffic count’ now has a huge potential customer base to make opening a business viable.
When that customer base is spread out over a two county area nobody gets enough traffic to support a niche business.
The new jobs weren't stolen from anywhere else in the area because there was no business like it anywhere in the area!
Al? Albert Norman? Is that you?