Walmart to close over 200 stores, lay off 10,000 workers

The world's largest retailer is pulling the plug on its smallest store format and closing 269 stores globally, in a restructuring that will affect 16,000 workers.

The company is abandoning its U.S.-experiment Walmart Express, its smallest store format which was introduced in 2011 to compete with dollar stores.

More than 95 per cent of the stores that are set to be closed in the U.S. are within close proximity of another Walmart.

Walmart, currently operates 4,500 stores in the United States and has a global workforce of 2.2 million.

The closures will also affect stores in Latin America, including Puerto Rico and Brazil. There currently are no Canadian stores that will be affected.

The move is a result of a restructuring the company is doing to focus on its Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and e-commerce business to go head-to-head with online retailers such as Amazon.