A Wal Mart store front is seen in Toronto March 5, 2009. Wal-Mart Stores Inc's Canadian division has announced it will close its six Sam's Club locations in Ontario to focus instead on opening more Wal-Mart supercenters. REUTERS/ Mike Cassese
A Wal Mart store front is seen in Toronto March 5, 2009. Wal-Mart Stores Inc's Canadian division has announced it will close its six Sam's Club locations in Ontario to focus instead on opening more Wal-Mart supercenters. REUTERS/ Mike Cassese REUTERS/ Mike Cassese

Some 210 people from Walmart Canada will be without jobs soon. Most of those laid off came from the company's head office in Mississauga, Ontario. Affected were both management and non-management positions.

The job cuts represent 0.3 percent of Walmart Canada's entire 95,000 workforce. The company said the employees will also receive severance packages and access to career counselling services.

In a statement released after management met with employees at the Toronto Congress Centre on Tuesday, the company stressed the job cuts were due to organizational changes at the head office and field management structure. It will not in any way affect operations at its stores, currently numbering 389.

Moreover, there remains about 1,400 employees at the head office. "The changes are designed to create a more efficient organizational structure as the company positions itself competitively for the future," the company statement said.

The announcement of the job losses follows the one made in May where more than 700 jobs across its Canadian operations were reorganized. It also comes just after a week when Doug McMillon, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. president and chief executive officer, praised the Canadian division for its third-quarter report performance. "I'm especially pleased by the sales and profit improvements this quarter in Canada, both sequentially and over last year. The investments we've made to remodel our stores and drive supercentre expansion are resonating with customers," McMillon had said.

Both developments concur to the company's aim of being the lowest cost player in every country it operates in, as well as to help people save money, Global News quoted David Cheesewright, the head executive of Walmart's international division.

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer. It entered Canada on March 17, 1994 after buying the Woolco Canada chain of 122 stores from F. W. Woolworth Company. In 2012, it announced an expansion plan that was valued at $750 million. It has been trying to boost sales at its stores in view of increased competition from online retailers, dollar stores and drug stores. Despite the job cuts, Walmart Canada noted in the same statement that it had been adding 2,900 jobs this year, "most of which are at store level."