400 layoffs planned at former Walmart robotics unit in Massachusetts

Symbiotic acquired the Andover robotics portion from Walmart for $200 million, according to a Jan. 16, 2025, property release, and up to an further $350 cardinal successful the future, arsenic portion of an ongoing narration betwixt the 2 companies, which started successful 2017.

The automation institution said astatine the clip that it would make further proviso concatenation exertion to supply “accelerated pickup and transportation options” for Walmart customers.

In turn, Walmart agreed to deploy Symbiotic exertion successful astatine slightest 400 of its stores implicit the adjacent fewer years, paying the institution $520 million.

According to the company, the layoffs are portion of Symbiotic’s process of combining the robotics portion with its ain existing operations.

“While [layoff] decisions similar these are ever difficult, we made them pursuing a thorough post-close reappraisal of our operations to guarantee we are champion positioned for the aboriginal with an effectual operation to proceed executing our semipermanent maturation strategy,” the institution said successful a statement. “We admit the contributions of the impacted employees and are committed to treating each worker respectfully during this change.”

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