Walmart announced Friday that longtime CEO Doug McMillon will retire at the end of January — which came as a surprise to some given the company’s success in a rapidly evolving retail landscape.

John Furner, Walmart’s U.S. CEO, will assume the role of overall CEO on Feb. 1, the company said. McMillon will continue to serve in an executive and advisory role through January 2027. Furner, 51, began his career at Walmart as an hourly associate.

McMillon, 59, has held the top job since 2014 and is only the fifth person to lead the storied company in its 63-year history.

McMillon has overseen a radical transformation of Walmart’s image in a little over a decade.

In 2014, Walmart had a reputation as a budget retail option and was accused of underpaying its associates. Today, it draws more well-to-do shoppers and has earned credit for adopting innovative personnel policies.

McMillon also built up Walmart’s e-commerce operation into the country’s second-largest, behind only Amazon. Over the course of McMillon’s tenure, the value of Walmart’s shares has increased some 300%.

“Serving as Walmart’s CEO has been a great honor and I’m thankful to our Board and the Walton family for the opportunity,” McMillon said in a statement. “I’ve worked with John for more than 20 years. … He’s uniquely capable of leading the company through this next AI-driven transformation.”

America’s retail landscape continues to rapidly evolve, as consumer spending habits increasingly bifurcate between wealthier households and everyone else.

However, Walmart’s quarterly results have held steady — and the company has been justly rewarded by investors. Just this year, Walmart shares have climbed around 13%. Over the course of McMillon’s tenure, the retailer’s stock price is up some 300%.

On Walmart’s most recent earnings call in August, McMillon indicated the company has been able to withstand the broader pressures facing consumers. Its shoppers’ “behavior has been generally consistent,” he said. “We aren’t seeing dramatic shifts.”

Other retailers have not been so fortunate.

Target’s shares have lost about one-third of their value this year, as the chain works to regain its footing in a more value-conscious environment. In August, longtime CEO Brian Cornell announced plans to step down.

Amazon, meanwhile, has fared slightly better as consumers continue to prioritize the convenience of online shopping. But it recently announced thousands of layoffs affecting corporate employees. Amazon’s share price has climbed about 8% this year.

McMillon has also steered Walmart through a volatile period in U.S. politics, during which elected officials have engaged directly with companies and consumers have proven willing to boycott corporate giants over social issues.

Walmart found itself in President Donald Trump’s crosshairs in May, after it signaled plans to increase some prices in response to his tariffs.

“Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, ‘EAT THE TARIFFS,’ and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!”

While subsequent reports indicated that Walmart had indeed increased prices on some items, McMillon said in August that the changes were gradual enough that consumer habits shifted only modestly.

Six months after Trump singled Walmart out over tariffs, he did so again — but for a very different reason.

In recent weeks, the Trump White House has repeatedly touted Walmart’s 2025 Thanksgiving menu package — which costs less overall than the retailer’s similar menu did last year — as a sign that the president’s economic policies have helped drive down grocery prices for consumers.

But there is a flaw in that rationale. This year’s Walmart Thanksgiving menu contains fewer items than last year’s menu did.

More than 1,000 unionized Starbucks workers went on strike at 65 U.S. stores Thursday to protest a lack of progress in labor negotiations with the company.

The strike was intended to disrupt Starbucks’ Red Cup Day, which is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year. Since 2018, Starbucks has given out free, reusable cups on that day to customers who buy a holiday drink. Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, said Thursday morning that the strike had already closed some stores and was expected to force more to close later in the day.

Starbucks Workers United said stores in 45 cities would be impacted, including New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Diego, St. Louis, Dallas, Columbus, Ohio, and Starbucks’ home city of Seattle. There is no date set for the strike to end, and more stores are prepared to join if Starbucks doesn’t reach a contract agreement with the union, organizers said.

Starbucks emphasized that the vast majority of its U.S. stores would be open and operating as usual Thursday. The coffee giant has 10,000 company-owned stores in the U.S., as well as 7,000 licensed locations in places like grocery stores and airports.

As of noon Thursday on the East Coast, Starbucks said it was on track to meet or exceed its sales expectations for the day at its company-owned stores.

“The day is off to an incredible start,” the company said in a statement.

Around 550 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores are unionized. More have voted to unionize, but Starbucks closed 59 unionized stores in September as part of a larger reorganization campaign.

Here’s what’s behind the strike.

Striking workers say they’re protesting because Starbucks has yet to reach a contract agreement with the union. Starbucks workers first voted to unionize at a store in Buffalo in 2021. In December 2023, Starbucks vowed to finalize an agreement by the end of 2024. But in August of last year, the company ousted Laxman Narasimhan, the CEO who made that promise. The union said progress has stalled under Brian Niccol, the company’s current chairman and CEO. The two sides haven’t been at the bargaining table since April.

Workers say they’re seeking better hours and improved staffing in stores, where they say long customer wait times are routine. They also want higher pay, pointing out that executives like Niccol are making millions and the company spent $81 million in June on a conference in Las Vegas for 14,000 store managers and regional leaders.

Dochi Spoltore, a barista from Pittsburgh, said in a union conference call Thursday that it’s hard for workers to be assigned more than 19 hours per week, which leaves them short of the 20 hours they would need to be eligible for Starbucks’ benefits. Spoltore said she makes $16 per hour.

“I want Starbucks to succeed. My livelihood depends on it,” Spoltore said. “We’re proud of our work, but we’re tired of being treated like we’re disposable.”

The union also wants the company to resolve hundreds of unfair labor practice charges filed by workers, who say the company has fired baristas in retaliation for unionizing and has failed to bargain over changes in policy that workers must enforce, like its decision earlier this year to limit restroom use to paying customers.

Starbucks says it offers the best wage and benefit package in retail, worth an average of $30 per hour. Among the company’s benefits are up to 18 weeks of paid family leave and 100% tuition coverage for a four-year college degree. In a letter to employees last week, Starbucks’ Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly said the union walked away from the bargaining table in the spring.

Kelly said some of the union’s proposals would significantly alter Starbucks’ operations, such as giving workers the ability to shut down mobile ordering if a store has more than five orders in the queue.

Kelly said Starbucks remained ready to talk and “believes we can move quickly to a reasonable deal.” Kelly also said surveys showed that most employees like working for the company, and its barista turnover rates are half the industry average.

Unionized workers have gone on strike at Starbucks before. In 2022 and 2023, workers walked off the job on Red Cup Day. Last year, a five-day strike ahead of Christmas closed 59 U.S. stores. Each time, Starbucks said the disruption to its operations was minimal. Starbucks Workers United said the new strike is open-ended and could spread to many more unionized locations.

The number of non-union Starbucks locations dwarfs the number of unionized ones. But Todd Vachon, a union expert at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said any strike could be highly visible and educate the public on baristas’ concerns.

Unlike manufacturers, Vachon said, retail industries depend on the connection between their employees and their customers. That makes shaming a potentially powerful weapon in the union’s arsenal, he said.

Starbucks’ same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, rose 1% in the July-September period. It was the first time in nearly two years that the company had posted an increase. In his first year at the company, Niccol set new hospitality standards, redesigned stores to be cozier and more welcoming, and adjusted staffing levels to better handle peak hours.

Starbucks also is trying to prioritize in-store orders over mobile ones. Last week, the company’s holiday drink rollout in the U.S. was so successful that it almost immediately sold out of its glass Bearista cup. Starbucks said demand for the cup exceeded its expectations, but it wouldn’t say if the Bearista will return before the holidays are ove

U.S.-based companies announced more than 153,000 job cuts in October, the research firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported Thursday.

“This is the highest total for October in over 20 years, and the highest total for a single month in the fourth quarter since 2008,’ the firm said in a news release.

From January through the end of October, employers have announced the elimination of nearly 1.1 million jobs. It’s the most Challenger has recorded since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the global economy.

“October’s pace of job cutting was much higher than average for the month,’ Andy Challenger, the firm’s chief revenue officer, said in a statement. The last time there was a higher October monthly total was in 2003.

“Some industries are correcting after the hiring boom of the pandemic, but this comes as AI adoption, softening consumer and corporate spending, and rising costs drive belt-tightening and hiring freezes,” he said.

On Wednesday, the private payroll processor ADP released its own October jobs data, showing that employers added just 42,000 jobs in the month.

The ADP report also flagged job losses in the leisure and hospitality sector as a potential sign of trouble ahead, given the industry’s acute sensitivity to consumer sentiment.

ADP’s chief economist called the losses in hospitality and leisure a ‘concerning trend.’

Both Challenger and ADP’s reports landed as major companies such as Amazon, IBM, UPS, Target, Microsoft, Paramount and General Motors announced plans to eliminate tens of thousands of jobs.

Despite the wave of downbeat economic news, the Trump administration continues to deliver an upbeat take on the current environment.

“Jobs are booming” and “inflation is falling,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday.

However, the most recent available data paints a different picture.

Inflation has also been on the rise. Prices as measured by the Consumer Price Index overall have risen every month since April.

A spokesperson for the Treasury Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the Challenger report.

Challenger’s report does not typically carry the same weight with economists and investors as federal jobs data, owing to its methodology.

To arrive at its figures, the firm compiles the number of job cuts companies have publicly announced. But employers may not ultimately carry out all the cuts they roll out.

Moreover, some of the job cuts that multinational companies announce could affect workers outside of the United States. Other headcount reductions could be achieved through attrition, rather than layoffs. The report also may not capture smaller layoffs over the long run.

But in the midst of a federal data blackout caused by the government shutdown, Challenger’s latest report is being read more closely than usual.

The federal government’s October jobs report that would traditionally be released Friday will not be published this week, due to the shutdown.

Other key data about the U.S. economy like GDP and an inflation indicator called PCE, closely watched by the Federal Reserve, has also been delayed.

Challenger equated the impact of AI on the current labor market to the rise of the internet in the early aughts. “Like in 2003, a disruptive technology is changing the landscape,” it said.

‘Technology continues to lead in private-sector job cuts as companies restructure amid AI integration, slower demand, and efficiency pressures,’ Challenger said.

But even firms that are not actively cutting jobs have warned that they do not plan to add to their headcount in the near term, with several pointing directly to AI’s impact on their personnel needs.

On Wednesday night, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told CNN that headcount at his company would likely remain steady as the nation’s largest bank rolls out AI internally.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon also recently told his employees that the firm would ‘constrain headcount growth through the end of the year,’ as it takes advantage of AI efficiencies, Bloomberg reported.

Yum Brands said on Tuesday it was exploring strategic options for its Pizza Hut chain as the unit struggles to keep pace in a highly competitive fast-food industry vying for sales from a stressed consumer.

“Pizza Hut‘s performance indicates the need to take additional action to help the brand realize its full value, which may be better executed outside of Yum Brands,” Yum Brands’ new CEO, Chris Turner, said in a statement.

Pizza Hut‘s sales have lagged Yum Brands’ other prominent units, Taco Bell and KFC International, falling for seven consecutive quarters. In comparison, Taco Bell last reported negative comparable sales in June 2020.

Yum Brands’ shares were up about 2% in premarket trading after the company banked on 7% growth in Taco Bell U.S. same-store sales and 3% growth in KFC International to beat third quarter estimates.

Pizza Hut accounts for about 11% of Yum Brands’ operating profits, compared with about 38% for Taco Bell’s U.S. business.

Several quarters of price hikes at restaurants, sticky inflation and economic uncertainty have forced consumers to become more wary about dining out as they look to stretch their budgets. Still, pizzas are viewed as a value-option to feed families.

Industry giant Domino’s Pizza DPZ.O said in October that although fast-food traffic was slowing, consumers were still seeking out its pizzas, helped by promotions and new menu items, as well as its delivery partnerships with third-party aggregators such as Doordash DASH.O and UberEats UBER.N.

While Pizza Hut has also offered value deals such as various personal pizzas for $5 and $2, “an insufficient value message amid a competitive value landscape resulted in transaction softness,” company veteran and former CEO David Gibbs said in August.

Taco Bell’s Tex-Mex cuisine and its more affordable prices have held Yum Brands in good stead against the slowdown in dining out.

Yum Brands’ worldwide same-store sales grew 3% during the quarter ended September 30, 2025 edging past estimates of a 2.68% increase, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Adjusted profit per share of $1.58 beat estimates of $1.49.

Packaged food giant PepsiCo acquired Pizza Hut in 1977, but spun off the chain along with KFC and Taco Bell in 1997 to create a restaurants company, which took on the name Yum Brands in 2002.

A deadline to complete Pizza Hut‘s strategic review has not been set, and there was no assurance that the process would result in a transaction, Yum Brands said on Friday.