In July 2006, Wal-Mart announced its withdrawal of operations from Germany because of sustained losses, they were simply mentally unable to operate a business on the German market and burned the money of their shareholders. The stores were sold to the German based international chain METRO AG (which is one of the big global players in this market). 15 of 85 stores were closed, most of the others rebranded to REAL, Metros comparable chain. Rebranding is still in process and will be completed June 28.

Of course there will not be thousands of people losing their job. And however: Waltmart has a labor force turnover even in the US of about 75 percent working there for less than a year. So no big loss for the labor markt anyway. What will certainly happen is that quite a few people get a better employer. Metro is for sure a fair and well reputed employer and not what we know from Walmart: Low wages, poor working conditions, inadequate health care, lack of recognition, inadequate pay, strong anti-union policies and a high labor force turnover rate was one of the prime concerns workers had with Walmart. And they failed last but not least because workers in Germany did not accept these conditions close to .....

Any further questions?