Home Depot to cut in-store HR staff

ATLANTA, April 5 (UPI) -- Home Depot Inc. of Atlanta plans to cut about 1,000 jobs as part of its human resources restructuring, the company said.

The change is aimed at putting more workers on the company's sales floors, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

Rather than having in-store personnel managers in each of its nearly 2,000 U.S. stores, the retailer said it is instead going to handle human resource issues on a district basis.

"The goal of the program essentially is to add three full-time associates to the sales floor in each store," said company spokesman Ron DeFeo.

About 200 people will be hired for a new human resources service center to handle most store-level personnel needs by telephone, the newspaper said.

Among other cost-saving measures, the company has said it is shifting freight receiving and stocking at its lower-volume stores from overnight to days, after finding there wasn't enough work for overnight crews.